Reference books such as encyclopedias are useful for background information,
overviews of topics, and bibliographies. Try searching SOPHIA for "encyclopedia
Africa" or "encyclopedia music"
You may also search for books on your topic to check out of the library.
Try searching SOPHIA with keywords such as "africa popular culture"
or "africa popular music"
Reference sources are a good starting point as they provide
background information, and can help you identify a research topic, and
suggest other materials which may be useful for your research.
Africana: the encyclopedia of the
African and African American experience edited by Kwame Anthony
Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Basic Civitas Books, c1999
Ref. DT14 .A37435
Africa South of the Sahara.
London, Europa Publications Ltd. 1971-
DT351 .A37 vol.35 - Reference, earlier holdings in the stacks
The African studies companion: a
resource guide & directory by Hans M. Zell London; New
York : H. Zell, 1989 Ref. DT19.8 .Z45
Atlas of slavery by James
Walvin. Harlow, England; New York: Pearson Longman, 2006 Ref.
HT861 .W33
Black Africa by Donald George
Morrison, Robert Cameron Mitchell and John Naber Paden New York: Paragon
House, 1989, c1988 Ref. DT352.8 .M67
Encyclopedia of African history
edited by Kevin Shillington New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005 Ref.
DT20 .E53 vol. 1-3
The encyclopedia of African and African-American
religions edited by Stephen D. Glazier New York: Routledge,
2001 Ref. BL2462.5 .E53
Encyclopedia of twentieth-century
African history edited by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza and Dickson Eyoh
London; New York: Routledge, 2003
Ref. DT29 .E53
The Garland encyclopedia of world
music edited by Bruno Nettl and Ruth M. Stone, James Porter
and Timothy Rice. New York: Garland Pub., 1998-2002. Ref. ML100
.G16 1997 vol. 1- 10. vol.1. Africa
The Greenwood encyclopedia of women's
issues worldwide edited by Lynn Walter. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2003. Ref. HQ1115 .G74 vol. 1- 6; vol. 4 The Middle East
and North Africa; vol. 6 Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Greenwood encyclopedia of world
popular culture edited by Gary Hoppenstand. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 2007.
Ref. HM621 .G74 vol.1- 6; vol. 4 North Africa and the Middle
East; vol.5 Sub-Saharan Africa.
Historical dictionary of women in
Sub-Saharan Africa by Kathleen Sheldon Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow
Press, 2005 Ref. HQ1787 .S44
The new atlas of African history
by G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville New York: Simon & Schuster, c1991 Ref.
G2446.S1 F73
Reference Databases
ARTstor Digital Library
(due to access problems, ARTstor is currently available on campus only)
GroveMusic:
an integrated
music resource on the web, including the full text of The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition), The New
Grove Dictionary of Opera and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz
(second edition). Sibelius offers links to audio files
related to a variety of themes & topics. You can use the Sibelius
Scorch plugin, which links directly to Sibelius files. Click here
to get the plugin & browse Sibelius.
Grove
Dictionary of Art 
(Full-text, with images. Note: images may vary between the print &
online versions)
Specialized Databases - Biography
Biography
Reference Bank
Biography
Resource Center
General Reference Database
Credo
Reference
Credo Reference features full-text content from over 240 reference
books from over 50 publishers, covering such subjects as medicine, art,
technology, and history. The collection includes encyclopedias, dictionaries
and thesauri, as well as subject-specific titles.
Arts & Humanities/Social Sciences Databases
Academic
Search Complete
a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database consisting
of articles from some peer-reviewed journals as well as monographs,
reports, conference proceedings, and other sources.
Black
Women Writers
celebrates the many voices of women from Africa and the African Diaspora.
Offering fiction, poetry, and essays from three continents and 20 countries,
the database gives an unparalleled view of black women’s struggles
through time.
Film
& Television Literature Index with Full Text
Comprehensive bibliographic and full text database covering the entire
spectrum of television and film. Subject coverage includes film &
television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production,
cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
Historical
Abstracts
covers the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding
the United States and Canada that are covered in its companion database,
America: History and Life). It provides bibliographic citations and
article abstracts on all aspects of history from over 2,000 scholarly
journals, dissertations and selected books.
JSTOR
provides
access to full text of back issues of core journals in the humanities,
social sciences and sciences.
LexisNexis
Academic
contains approximately 5,000 publications, virtually all include
full text. Many types of publications are included: newspapers in English,
other languages, and translations of international papers.
Project
MuseFull-text
of more than 200 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences
from several university presses.
Sociological
Collection
is a database with more than 475 full-text titles. It provides information
on all areas of sociology, including social behavior, human tendencies,
interaction, relationships, community development, culture and social
structure.
SocINDEX
with Full Text
provides full text of articles in all subdisciplines of sociology, and
also indexes for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources.
To find books at other libraries
WorldCat
Find books & publications owned by databases worldwide.
You
do not need to know who owns a book or journal
before placing an InterLibrary Loan request.
Does McCain Library have this journal? Is it full-text?
If the database you are searching does not include your journal or
article, search the Journal/Article
Locator. 
This will show you if we have your journal through any database. The
journal/article locator will also tell you if we have a publication
in our print or microfilm collections. If we don't have access to the
publication, you can request the article through Interlibrary
Loan, or, check to see if another
local library that you can visit owns it.
Other local libraries may have books in their collections on your topic.
Try searching their catalogs for relevant materials.
For additional assistance, please contact the McCain Library Scottie
Research & Rescue Desk in person, by phone (404-471-6096), email,
or IM us at asclibrarian (AOL & Yahoo).
