Specialised Information Service for African Studies

• Applicant: Daniela Poth
• Subject Area: African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: since 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 285946526

The Specialised Information Service (German: Fachinformationsdienst, FID) for African Studies aims at implementing information services for African Studies researchers. The targeted academic fields are the social sciences, arts and humanities, as represented by the scholarly societies for African Studies in Germany, namely the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD) and the Association for African Language Linguistics (Fachverband Afrikanistik). In close consultation with these and its advisory board, the FID African Studies continues and expands its activities. The FID focuses on the acquisition of literature published on the African continent. The acquisition of this hard-to-find (including "Grey") literature is intended to make African academic debates more visible in Germany in order to facilitate genuine scholarly exchange and research collaboration. In addition to printed monographs and journals, so-called "grey literature" is also purchased (in part via book acquisition trips) and e-books from African publishers are licensed. In the second funding phase, the FID African Studies has established a new information and reference platform, africanstudieslibrary.org, on which academic resources and holdings are aggregated as of October 2022. The goal of the third funding phase is the further expansion of this subject-specific information infrastructure and the services as well as the integration of further data collections. In this context, one focus is on the further automation and validation of data imports and exports. Another focus is the implementation of feedback from the academic community on the user experience of the portal based on results of the usability study and the FID roadshows. This involves adjusting the user interface and creating the option of logging in via Shibboleth as a supplement to the ORCID-based login. In order to improve the search options, a geographically explorative search will be implemented, which will make it possible to find publications by region and topic. In addition, users will be able to place interlibrary loan and Subito orders directly from the portal. Other activities include engaging regularly with the academic community and collaboration with additional stakeholders. Collaboration with the research community is central to raising awareness of the services, but also to identifying their present and future requirements. At the end of the third funding phase, the modifications and extensions of the portal will once again be evaluated by means of a survey on the portal's user experience. Through the renewal of the portal, through information infrastructure coordination and support services, and by providing specialized literature from Africa, the Specialised Information Service for African Studies contributes to the sustainability of area studies subjects which form part of the German Federal Government's strategy for international collaboration in academic research.

• DFG Programme: Acquisition and Provision (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)