Africana in the Indexes

Abstract

Hartwig and O'Barr state in The Student Africanist's Handbook that Students of African affairs are poorly served by standard indexing services in the respective disciplines. Too many periodicals devoted to Africa are simply not indexed in the standard reference works.This paper is the result of a study carried out in late summer 1976, to determine how well that statement stands. My approach was to go directly to the indexes (in the social sciences and humanities) to learn how many Africanist journals are actually indexed, and how well Africana materials are covered.For this study “index” is interpreted in its broadest sense: any bibliographic list arranged in some order to allow a subject approach. Therefore, abstracts and bibliographies were included, as well as current contents and advanced contents indexes, in addition to the more “traditional” indexes, but machine-readable data banks were excluded. Also, I sought indexes that are current and that appear on a regular basis, at least annually. 1975 volumes (or the most recent) were used for comparison.

Are pre-compiled citation indexes of peer-reviewed journals an adequate control for research quality? A case study of library and information science

“…It may be worth noting that LISis not the only discipline for which this is a problem. For a discussion of the visibility of Argentine literary periodicals in the indexes, see Romanos de Tiratel and others, 2003, and with regard to African studies, the critiques date back to the era of the printed index (Scheven, 1977).…”