African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

APPENDIX:
African Studies Centers and Libraries in
the USA and Africa
See entry: Libraries
African Centers and Libraries
• Centre Regional de Documentation (CRDT) was established in Niamey, Niger, as a
joint venture between the government of Niger and UNESCO in 1968. One of the
goals of the center was to collect data in sixteen West African countries.
• The Swaziland Oral History Project, based in the National Archives of Lobamba,
established in 1985, has the goal to introduce an archive of Swazi oral history and
publish select transcripts from the archive.
• The Oral Traditions Association of Zimbabwe (OTAZI), formed in 1988, an
organization that is closely linked with the Oral Traditions Association of Southern
Africa (OTASA) aims at promoting Zimbabwe’s oral history and at improving the
methodology of working with oral data.
• The East African Centre for Research on Oral Traditions and African National
Languages (EACROTANAL) is based in Zanzibar and founded in 1977 by Tanzania,
Madagascar, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Burundi, with Somalia, Mozambique and the
Comoros joining later. One of the center’s goals is to promote regional research on
oral traditions. The center has also published Studies and Documents (Etudes et
documents) between 1980 and 1987.
• The Institute of African Studies Documentation Centre (University of Ghana) opened in
1990 and has as its goals to gather and disseminate oral data, serve as an information
center for researchers, and to be a regional center for the collection of oral data.
• The George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs in Ghana opened in 1961. In
the early 1980s, the library conducted a series of oral documentation that consisted of
interviews of prominent Ghanaians and Africanists
• The Cultural Archives of Senegal, which is connected to Senegal’s Ministry of Culture,
has as its goal “the worldwide collecting and archival management of the various
forms of expression of Negro-African civilization in order that elements of their
original structure may be conserved” (Saliou Mbaye, “Oral Records in Senegal,” 568).
• The Center for the Study of Civilizations in Senegal (also connected to the Ministry of
Culture) opened in 1972 and has as its mission the “study of the interrelationship
between language and culture, the development and goals of the humanities in Africa,
the study of the imaginary world, and the promotion of cultural life among the
people.” (Ibid., 569) It collects oral literature and studies modes of traditional
expression based on the spoken word.