Digitising, disseminating and showcasing African cultural materials.
Digitising disseminating and showcasing African cultural materials
Organisations
Collections
Documents
Historical African content is often difficult to access and remains beyond the reach of many researchers and students. This is due to a range of barriers, with physical access limitations continuing to be a major challenge, particularly for researchers based in Africa.
Africa Commons removes these barriers by bringing together rare and valuable historical African content into one powerful, searchable platform.
African-focused
Enhance your institutional e-resources with African–focused historical content through the Africa Commons service. Rich collections of historical magazines, newspapers and films are available in Africa Commons, some of which have never been digitised before.
Not just for Historians…
Africa Commons will benefit not only the historians and history students in your institution, but also supports a wide range of disciplines in your institution including but not limited to:
- Journalism
- Film and documentary studies
- Cultural and heritage studies
- Literature
- Fashion
- Marketing and advertising
- Social psychology
- Media and communication
- And more…
Give every faculty member access to relevant, real-world African primary source material and the research opportunity they would not have been able to consider before.
THE MODULES
Experience Africa Commons through one or any combination of modules. Each module offers curated collections designed to support research, teaching, and discovery.
The Core Modules
Africa Commons: South African Magazines
Historically significant magazines written for African audiences.
Consisting of over 50,000 pages, this groundbreaking, digitised collection of rare, historical, and out-of-copyright magazines comprises historically significant magazines written for African audiences.
Titles include, but are not limited to:
- Drum Magazine 1951-1973
- The Township Housewife
- Grace Magazine
- Hi-Note!
- Contrast
- She
- True Africa
At the heart of this compilation stands the iconic Drum Magazine:
- Once the most widely read magazine in Africa
- Drum reflected the heartbeat of our society
- Over 300 issues, spanning 1951-1973
Give your researchers and students access to primary sources that document South Africa’s cultural evolution.
Explore the collection
Africa Commons: West African Magazines
Showcasing rare, historically significant magazines from West Africa.
Gain unique insight into West Africa’s literary, artistic and cultural evolution. This growing collection of rare, historically significant magazines from West Africa includes up to 50,000 pages of popular magazines and literary journals spanning the decades from the 1930s to today.
This is a growing collection of rare, historically significant magazines from West Africa and titles include, but are not limited to:
- Nigeria Magazine (1937 – 1985)
- Okyeame (1960 – 1972)
- La Vie Africaine (1959 – 1965)
- Black Orpheus (1957 – 1967)
Provide access to foundational texts that shaped West Africa’s intellectual and cultural identity.
Qualifying West African institutions receive free access to Africa Commons: West African Magazines.
Africa Commons: Southern African Films and Documentaries
Streaming access to more than a century of African history, politics, and culture.
Gain streaming access to more than a century of African history, politics, and culture. This module’s content spans the 1900s to the early 2000s and features:
- Over 100 films and documentaries dating from the 1900s to the early 2000s
- Films and newsreels covering key events from 1919 onwards
- Exclusive interviews from the 1980s
- Writers, journalists, and activists discussing first-hand accounts of key events
- All films are transcribed and keyword searchable.
The content supports teaching and research in:
- Film & cinema
- History & world culture
- Race & ethnicity
- Women’s studies
- And other areas…
Bring Southern African history to life through powerful visual storytelling.
Explore the collection
Additional Modules
Africa Commons: History and Culture
Showcasing rare and endangered African cultural materials.
Showcasing rare and endangered African cultural materials, it is the most comprehensive place for searching and collecting African historical and cultural materials.
As a central access point to over 609 000 digital cultural artifacts curated from more than 4 500 collections worldwide, the module features:
- 600 contributing organisations
- Books, newspapers, government documents, letters, diaries, posters, and manuscripts
- Oral history, photographs, art, music, and videos
- Simple, powerful search
Your researchers and students can now find thousands of digital collections of African materials in one place. Multiple kinds of sources available on one convenient platform.
Organisations located in Africa can upload their relevant content for free to the platform to make it more discoverable.
Explore the collection
Africa Commons: Pan-African Magazines
Over 70,000 pages of rare magazines from South, East and West Africa documenting African life.
Explore African life and identity across regions and decades. This module contains over 70,000 pages of rare magazines from South, East and West Africa documenting African life.
Through an exclusive agreement with the Drum Archive gives users access to regional editions of Drum:
- Drum South Africa: 1974–1983
- Drum isiZulu: 1963–1964
- Drum East Africa: 1957–1991
- Drum Federation: 1960–1961
- Drum West Africa: 1954–1957
- Drum Ghana: 1958–1972
- Drum Nigeria: 1958–1982
- Drum International: 1966
These rare materials are seldom available outside their countries of origin and are preserved digitally on one accessible platform.
Explore the collection
Africa Commons: East African Newspapers, Magazines & Films
Showcasing the work of this iconic Kenyan journalist, publisher, and social commentator.
Access a leading archive of Kenyan journalism and cultural history. This module showcases the work of the influential Kenyan journalist, publisher, and social commentator, Hillary Ng’weno.
The Archive provides access to over 100,000 pages of digitised publications from Ng’weno’s media company, including:
- The Weekly Review (1975-1999)
- The Nairobi Times (1977-1983)
- Rainbow children’s magazines (1976-1995)
- The Kenyan Heritage Series films
Give your researchers and students access to a trusted, single-source archive of East African media and historical insight.
Explore the collection
More Value for African Institutions
African Academic institutions that subscribe to the key modules (South African Magazines, West African Magazines, or Southern African Films and Documentaries) will receive free access to the additional modules (History and Culture; East African Newspapers, Magazines & Films and Pan-African Magazines).
Preservation and access through Africa Commons
Give your researchers and students access to invaluable historical African content, some of which have not been available in a digital format before. Collections of magazines and newspapers were made as complete as possible through partnership with African libraries and collection holders where possible.
Africa Commons also assists you in your preservation quest, as your physical collections of some of the titles you may hold in your holdings can be kept safe from deterioration through use.
Global partnership
The South African Magazines and West African Magazines have been developed in collaboration with Sabinet’s US-based editorial partner, Coherent Digital, a leading publisher specialising in surfacing endangered and hard-to-find content from the Global South and making it widely accessible.
Sabinet and Coherent Digital share a common goal of preserving African content and facilitating its accessibility to researchers in South Africa and Africa, making us ideal partners.
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