Scolma

Forum for librarians, archivists & others concerned with African studies materials in libraries and archives in the UK since 1962.

[BRITTLE PAPER @brittlepaper]

Our fourth Festive Anthology is here! SEASONAL MIGRATION features poets and writers from across Africa exploring what it means to be away from home during the holidays. Longing, settling in, and forging new paths. Read it now! 🎄✨
https://t.co/9fbxG769pD

[History ZAR @HistorySAZAR]

Lucy Lloyd was the first woman in South Africa to be awarded an honorary doctorate. She was awarded an honorary doctorate at the age of 78, a year before her death. She was the creator, along with Wilhelm Bleek, of the 19th-century archive of ǀXam and !Kung texts. Image Source: © Special Collections / University of Cape Town Libraries

[BRITTLE PAPER @brittlepaper]

.@masobebooks is reissuing Akwaeke Emezi's FRESHWATER with a beautiful new cover in April 2026! Originally published by Grove Press, the groundbreaking novel returns through a Nigerian publisher. African are stories coming home to African presses 🎉📚
https://t.co/rW6qYCBUfw

[Scolma @Scolma]

Hundreds of items taken in high-value Bristol Museum archive raid - BBC News

[isaac Samuel @rhaplord]

70,000 African artifacts are held at the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac in France
https://t.co/gC8fKjPA9c

[Wanted @WantedOnlineSA]

Online African archives remain dependent on the Global North for their digital infrastructure. https://t.co/EDaDL5gvBO

[BRITTLE PAPER @brittlepaper]

The African Journals Initiative launches to bring African scholarship to global audiences! The new platform will increase visibility and accessibility of research produced on the continent 🌍@AfricanJou88165
https://t.co/yzaZG5olfw

[Africa Is a Country @africasacountry]

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism. https://t.co/lwoPnKIMSO

[History ZAR @HistorySAZAR]

Libraries were not opened for Black South Africans in the early years of segregation. The Carnegie Library for Black people was then launched. HIE Dhlomo, pictured below, who was to become a prominent literary figure, was appointed the native Librarian of this mobile outlet from 1932 to 1937. Image Source: The New African / Tim Couzens

[Switch Africa @Switch_AFR]

Across Africa, public libraries are becoming digital hubs, empowering young people with the skills and access they need to thrive in the digital age. The Hoima Public Library started operation in 1964, opened by the Uganda Public Library Board.

Switched by @ShibaNakakande

#ShapingCulture #shapingthefuture #Switchafrica

[Kweku Opoku-Agyemang, Ph.D @KwekuOA]

Another trip down Ghana's national memory lane. The Children’s Library in Accra during Kwame Nkrumah’s era was one of Ghana’s most forward-thinking cultural and educational projects. It was part of Nkrumah’s broader vision to build a modern, literate, and self-confident African nation after independence.

A thread.

[Marie-Hélène Thomas 💙💛 @MarieHeleneTho2]

“In total there are 12 red brick libraries, they hold more than 2,000 volumes, including Quranic manuscripts, books on astronomy, mathematics, medicine, poetry, and legal jurisprudence across the Maghreb and west Africa, dating back to the 11th century” https://t.co/89yrywJgGO

[AfLIA @AfLIACon]

Join library and information professionals across Africa for the African Public & Community Libraries Virtual Summit 2025 – themed “Libraries Without Borders: Connecting the Dots.”
3–4 December 2025 | 9am UTC | Virtual | Free participation. Register: https://t.co/k588hF2Pfr

[BRITTLE PAPER @brittlepaper]

Equator is a new global magazine and movement combining longform writing on politics, culture, and literature with public events, reading groups, and exhibitions. For African writers, it creates space to publish work on their own terms!
https://t.co/wp0ct3qtKH

[Belinda Dodson @BelindaJDodson]

Including in African Studies, Women's History, and other specialist topics. Apply!
(The Bodleian is Oxford University's Library. Nerd nirvana.)

[ASR @ASRJournal]

The final ASR prize this year is our Best Article Prize, and we are happy to announce that this year’s winner is Charles Lwanga, "'Watch Your Tone!': Bobi Wine's 'Tugambire ku Jennifer' and the Kampala Street Vendors." ASR 67.4 (December 2024): 920-940.

https://t.co/8eA6dBbttO

[British Institute in Eastern Africa @The_BIEA]

#BIEAaEvents
💡We are delighted to invite you to the BIEA UK Annual Lecture on Nov. 12 from 4:15pm to 6:30pm GMT with Professor David Anderson (University of Warwick). The lecture will explain how Koitalel “lost his head” and discuss why Africa’s history is being misrepresented by exaggerated tropes of colonial atrocity.
✅Register for an in-person/online attendance via https://t.co/yAc6EBa5eW
@EdinburghUni #Koitalel #KenyanHistory #HeroicResistance #HistoryLecture #ColonialHistory #AfricanStudies #PublicLecture #AfricanHistory

[Duncan Money @mininghistory]

The archive of Barings Bank (1762-1994) is steadily being digitised and is freely available online. Quite a bit of mining stuff in there:

https://t.co/rtFMcMFgKw

[Scolma @Scolma]

Applications open for Bodleian Visiting Fellowship in African Studies, open to a scholar affiliated with a university in sub-Saharan Africa: https://t.co/sEhm7hSoCO

[Carmen McCain @carmenmccain]

. @BritishAcademy_ writing workshop alumna and British Academy International Visiting Fellow at @hpsleeds will be giving a talk on Thursday, October 16, 5pm (UK time) at @CAS_SOAS Webinar link and link to her recent publication in @JournalAfLit in post. https://t.co/h02VXouYSB