Africa Commons | eDesiderata

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Overview

Africa Commons is a project which aims to enable Africa to easily control, digitize, and disseminate its cultural heritage–within Africa, and internationally. Digital repatriation efforts will make Africa Commons available for free to all African institutions, and Coheret Digital is also opening the resource to HCBUs in North America. This far, our platform includes:

Africa Commons: History and Culture- A finding aid, directory, and indexing tool which links to 500,000 items across thousands of collections from some 600+ organizations. As a preservation project, we’re helping to preserve at-risk content, and have already rescued 100,000+ items.
Black South African Magazines- The first and only digital collection of magazines created for Black audiences in Africa from 1937-1973, with more than 50,000 pages. (Please note that this collection remains in beta, and only Drum Magazine is currently available for trial. The others will be online soon!)
Southern African Films and Documentaries- This collection will enable streaming access to hundreds of films, covering more than a century of African history, politics, and culture. Five film types are represented— propaganda, newsreels, documentaries, feature films, and interviews.

Though still in Alpha, this collection will be available in Beta version, soon! In the interim, here’s a sneak peek and two-minute trailer.

Provider:

Coherent Digital, LLC

Posted:

Mar 24, 2023 10:22am

Updated:

May 22, 2023 2:54pm

Source

Information provided here is drawn from a number of sources, and may not yet have been fully verified by CRL.

Details

Collection Content

Subject Areas:

Arts and Humanities

Social Sciences

Resource Types:

Ephemeral publications

Newspapers

Pamphlets

Photographs

Sound recordings

Television broadcasting

Video recordings

Content Details:


Topics covered	Advertising \| Africa \| Algeria \| Algerian war \|Angola \| Angolan war of independence \| Apartheid \| Arts \| Benin \| Berlin conference \| Black Sash \| Boer war \| Botswana \| British Indian Ocean Territory \| Burkina Faso \| Burundi \| Cabo Verde \| Cameroon \| Cecil Rhodes \| Central Africa \| Central African Republic \| Chad Chinua Achebe \| Cinema \| Civil War \| Colonialism\| Comoros \| Congo \| Congo crisis \| Côte d'Ivoire \| Cultural Studies \|Defiance campaign \| Democratic Republic of the Congo \| Desmond Tutu \| Documentaries \| Djibouti \| East Africa \| Egypt \| Equatorial Guinea \| Eritrea \| Eswatini \| Ethiopia \| Ethiopia famine \| Fashion \| Fatima Meer \| Federation of Mali \| Film \| Gabon \| Gambia \| Ghana \| Ghana Independence \| Guinea \| Guinea-Bissau \| Haile Selassie \| HIV/AIDS \| Hugh Masekela \| Ian Berry \| Jacob Zuma \| Kenya \| Kofi Annan \| Kwame Nkrumah \| Lesotho \| Liberia \| Libya \| Madagascar \| Malawi \| Mali \| Mamphela \| Mauritania \| Mauritius \| Morocco \| Mozambique \| Music \| Nadine Gordimer \| Namibia \| Nana Akufo-Addo \| Nelson Mandela \| Niger \| Nigeria \| Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma \| North Africa \| Northeast Africa \| Olaudah Equiano \| Oliver Tambo \| Politics \| Propaganda \| Rwanda \| Rwanda genocide \| Saint Helena \| San People \| Sao Tome and Principe \| Senegal \| Seychelles \| Sharpeville Massacre \| Sierra Leone \| Sol Plaatje \| Somalia \| South Africa \| Southern Africa \| Southern Rhodesia \| South Sudan \| Soweto uprising \| Sports \| Steve Biko \| Sudan \| Tanganyika \| Thabo Mbeki \| Togo \| Tunisia \| Uganda \| United Arab Republic \| United Republic of Tanzania \| Walter Sisulu \| West Africa \| Western Sahara \| Winnie Madikizela-Mandela \| Wole Soyinka \| Zambia \| Zanzibar \| Zanzibar revolution \| Zimbabwe
Geographic coverage	Northern Africa, Central Africa , Southern Africa, East Africa, and Western Africa
Chronological coverage	pre-history through today
Source format(s)	paper, video and film, digital [provider[
Total titles	445,315
Total pages	3.1 million
Major language (s)	Over 50% English; includes over 100 languages
Digital collection launch date	November 10, 2022
Completion date	Ongoing
Collection ongoing	Yes
Update frequency	Quarterly
Available supplements	Yes

Specifications

Metadata:


MARC records available	Yes
Creator of MARC records	Coherent Digital, LLC
Source for obtaining MARC records	Proprietary platform technology
Fee for MARC records	No
Subject authorities used	Proprietary taxonomies
Name authorities used	None

Technical Platform:


Browser compatibility	"Africa Commons supports the latest, stable releases of all major browsers and platforms. On Windows, we support Internet Explorer 10-11 / Microsoft Edge. Alternative browsers which use the latest version of WebKit, Blink, or Gecko, whether directly or via the platform’s web view API, are not explicitly supported. However, Africa Commons should (in most cases) display and function correctly in these browsers as well. More specific support information is provided below: Chrome >= 45 Firefox >= 38 Edge >= 12 Explorer >= 10 iOS >= 9 Safari >= 9 Android >= 4.4 Opera >= 30
Authentication options	IP-based, Shibboleth Single Sign-on, OpenAthens, email-based (e.g., *@uni.edu)
Archiving solution (master files)	Purchased content upon request
Archiving solution (derivative files)	Purchased content upon request
Available in web discovery tools	Upcoming in 2023. EBSCO & ProQuest.
Open url target	N/A
Federated searching, z39.50	N/A
Local host option	Purchased content upon request
Usage stats based on Counter code	Yes with SUSHI access

Interface Tools:


Full text displayed	Yes, displayed in proprietary viewer with KWIC.
Page images	Yes, displayed in List View, Grid View, and custom viewer.
Color images	Yes
Search full text	Yes
Advanced search	Yes
Search within results	Yes
Limit results by dates and/or document types	Yes, in both the Advanced Search user interface as well as in search results pages by applying the respective facet. Users can also limit searches by Document Type, Organization, Language, Year, Publisher Type, Publisher Region, Country, and Topic.
Display highlighted search terms	We display highlights within the publications metadata and/or the full text. Highlights are displayed on the search results page and when our custom viewer is in use.
Display snippet (search term in context)	We display highlights within the publications metadata and/or the full text. Highlights are displayed on the search results page and when our custom viewer is in use.
Relevance sorting	Yes, we have relevance sorting and that is the default way we sort search results. Additionally, users can sort results by date of publication: newest first or oldest first.
Save searches	Researchers are able to save and organize content by creating lists. Lists can remain private or be shared with the user's institution or the public. Users can also follow organizations, topics, or searches and may choose to receive alerts when new content is added.
Download PDF	Yes
Download HTML	No
Print page	Yes
Print full document	No
Export citations	Yes
Annotation tools	No
Cross-product searching	Yes
ILL permitted	Limited
Text/data mining permitted	Available to institutions who purchase perpetual rights.
Restrictions on use	Fair and reasonable use. See T&C's.

Terms and Provider Details

Terms:


Subscription option	Yes
Purchase option	Yes
Multiple year payments option	Yes
Maintenance fees	Yes
Hosting charges	No
Archiving	The product is held in a dark archive, available to owners of perpetual rights should a "trigger event" make the content inaccessible via the Coherent Digital server.

Provider:

Coherent Digital, LLC

Website:

https://coherentdigital.net/

Provider Notes:

A portion of the content in Africa Commons is indexed from open collections. In these cases, the artifact detail page links back to the originating site.

CRL Offers & Status

Status	Current	Description
CRL Flagged	no	Potential interest to CRL community
Offer Pending	no	Currently a candidate for CRL offer
Active Offer	yes	Currently offered for purchase or new subscription
Trial Access	no	Available for trial
Renewal Offer	no	Currently offered for renewal
Expired Offer	no	Past offers
Inactive / Declined	no	No longer under consideration by CRL
Reviewed by CRL	no	Evaluation available by CRL and community
Special Access	no	Member-only access available for a limited time