Microforms

Although we are now well past the onset of the digital age, other forms of preservation do live on. Most prominent among these are microfilms/microfiches. The Madison campus libraries have an enormous (well over 10,000 reels/fiches) of Africana materials in microformat. Among the most important are the archives of the Church Missionary Society’s African activities, secular correspondence during both the pre-colonial and colonial periods, many newspapers for the pre- and post-independence eras, and rare early printed materials. Very few of these materials have yet been digitized and are not likely to be for the foreseeable future. They may be consulted in Memorial Library’s Microforms and Media Center (Room 262D/E). A catalog of nearly 800 Africana holdings in microform is Anne Vandenburgh, Africana Microforms in the University of Wisconsin—Madison Memorial Library, can be consulted.