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There are
probably few serious scholars of Africa who are unfamiliar with
the name Melville J. Herskovits or Northwestern's Library of African
Studies that is named after him.
Known by anthropologists
and students of Africa as one of the first scholars to study and
recognize the importance of the African heritage of black people
in the New World, Herskovits was a member of Northwestern's faculty
from 1927 until his death in 1963.
In 1928, he
founded the University's anthropology department and, two decades
later, founded what is now the University's internationally renowned
Program of African Studies (PAS).
While he was
not the founder of the Library of African Studies at Northwestern,
the Northwestern professor provided much of the stimulus and vision
for the African library collection that officially opened in 1954
within Deering Library.
From the time
he arrived at Northwestern, Herskovits made a point of developing
close relationships with University librarians and encouraged
them to buy books on African history and ethnography. He himself
dealt frequently with rare book collectors in search of volumes
on slavery, African American history and other topics.
Upon the
death of Franz Boaz, the founder of the discipline of anthropology
and Herskovits's mentor at Columbia University, the Northwestern
professor facilitated Northwestern's purchase of Boaz's intellectually
rich, private library.
For Herskovits,
the establishment of the Program of African Studies was incomplete
without the establishment of a library of Africana. In 1948, librarians
at Deering began identifying all African-related books and printed
materials and creating a separate library for them.
In his five-year
report on the Program of African Studies, Herskovits declared
that the program had accomplished, with the creation of the library,
its second objective. The acquisition of bibliographic and other
materials was being steadily pursued.
He also proudly
noted that holdings in Africana numbered over 8,000 volumes and
that the library "subscribed to over 125 publications dealing
with Africa and not including a small but representative sample
of newspapers."
Herskovits
would be astounded to see the library now housed on the fifth
floor of University Library. It contains 245,000 bound volumes
and subscribes to 2,500 periodicals and journals. Its rare book
collection includes more than 3,500 titles, including early accounts
of European explorations of the African continent.
It is not
so much its collections as the completeness of its collecting
that is so astounding, says David Easterbrook, curator of the
Herskovits Library since 1991.
In addition
to videos, movies and television programs made in or about Africa,
the library boasts an extensive collection of ephemera, map and
posters, electronic resources for the study of Africa and 12,500
books in 300 different African languages.
The library
has an especially beautiful collection of illustrated children's
books from and about Africa. Its ephemera from independence and
anti-colonial struggles include posters, political pamphlets,
political party manifestos, videotapes and campaign buttons.
Two dozen
posters currently are on loan as part of an international exhibit
of art works depicting 20th century struggles against colonialism.
The exhibit will be at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art next
fall and New York's Museum of Modern Art after that.
To illustrate
how complete the library's collection is, Easterbrook related
a story about a Northwestern visit by Nigerian author Wole Soyinka
some years ago.
The Nobel
Prize-winning writer was giving an informal lecture on campus
before giving a gala reading at the Art Institute that night.
At Northwestern, he mentioned, as an aside, that he'd forgotten
one of the books he was planning to read from later that day.
"It was one
of his earliest publications, a book only published in Nigeria
and out of print even there," recalled Easterbrook. The curator
trotted to the Herskovits Library, quickly found the book in question,
and gave it to Soyinka at the conclusion of his campus talk.
"He was absolutely
amazed that we had a copy," added Easterbrook.
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