The Department of International & Area Studies (IAS) collects scholarly works in English, French, and Arabic, to support African Studies at Duke.
Collection strengths include history and culture, politics and government, economic and social conditions, slavery and race relations, and diaspora studies.
In addition, the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library houses primary sources on Africa.
Libraries at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill share access to specialized and expensive resources that do not need to be duplicated on individual campuses. Collection building has been divided along geographic and, in some cases, subject lines.
Duke University takes responsibility for the Anglophone areas of Africa; UNC-Chapel Hill takes responsibility for the Francophone and Lusophone areas of Africa. For North Africa, see Middle East & Islamic Studies.
Located in the Rubenstein Library, "the Franklin Research Center collects, preserves and promotes the use of published and unpublished primary sources for the exploration, understanding and advancement of scholarship of the history and culture of Africa and people of the African Diaspora in the Americas."
The Center's collection contains a variety of primary resources including audiovisual materials, ephemera, manuscripts, oral histories, personal papers, rare books, and first editions.