The Africana collection contains many archival collections, cover a wide range of topics, historical periods, and geographies of Africa. The two primary types of archival material are the research papers of Africanists, from MSU and other institutions, and archival collections from the African Activist Archive, for which more information can be found here.
Manuscript collections also include other kinds of unique collections, including historical photograph collections, ephemeral materials (including textiles), and other thematic collections. Manuscript collection 379 (MSS 379) is the Africana posters collection, which includes over 500 posters from Africa, individually cataloged and available for research and teaching.
Some archival material is only available in digital form, including in some cases entire collections of material. When this is the case, it will be indicated in both the catalog record and the finding aid. Access to these digitized or born digital material will be given at a computer terminal in the Special Collections Reading Room during normal Special Collections hours.
There are several ways to find archival collections in Special Collections.
Our catalog contains all our processed and unprocessed collections, listed by collection name. Processed collections have subject headings, which can also help you identify collections related to your area of research. Unprocessed collections will ask you to contact Special Collections if you are interested in using the material. We can often respond to processing requests with enough advance notice.
Collections can also be searched through ArchivesSpace, the software in which we make available our collections' finding aids, or inventories. A full listing of our collections can be found here.