Contemporary Africa Database

The Contemporary Africa Database ( http://www.africaexpert.org/), according to its about page, will eventually be in three parts -- a database of prominent Africans, a collection of information about African institutions, and a timeline of African chronology.

Currently only the first is available (the other two will become available over the next two years) but it of itself is worth a look. There are over 9500 Africans in the database, which is browsable by topic or country, or searchable by keyword.

The category tree is set up with seven main categories and several sub-categories. Each category has a number beside it -- Business is the most populated category, followed by Governance and Politics. The country listing covers from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Click on a country and you'll get a category listing for that particular country. Click on a category and you'll get an extensive sub-category listing. Click on a subcategory and you'll get a list of people. In the list I looked at (Linguists in Botswana) the listing contained a hyperlinked person's name and a brief description of their academic credentials.

Click on a name and you'll get a listing that includes family name, given name, gender, country, and title if applicable. There's a place for a profile of the person but most of the listings I saw did not have profiles. On the other hand, some listings had more; Nelson Mandela's page includes a list of his positions, achievements, and several links to Internet resources. Sometimes there are links to Internet listings but no profile, as in the case of Albert Camus.

Keyword search searches both the text of profiles as well as profile names -- searching for "Kidjo" finds both Angelique Kidjo and musician Manu Dibango. The listing includes the size of the listing, an easy way to tell at a glance if a listing includes a profile. (Listings without profiles are around 7K.) You can search for other keywords besides names -- searching for "activist" found 40 results, "nobel" found 12 results, and "economist" found 38 results.

I would love to see more profiles, but this is an excellent start. I look forward to the addition of African institutions and a timeline to this site.

Posted to World-Africa