About the thesaurus

The African Studies Thesaurus has been constructed  by the Library, Documentation and Information  Department of the African Studies Centre Leiden. It contains some 5,200 English descriptors (or preferred terms) covering the broad field of African studies, with an emphasis on the social sciences and humanities. An additional 6,900 non-preferred terms guide the user to preferred terms.

Developed as an indexing and retrieval tool for the ASC library collection, the African Studies Thesaurus  reflects the characteristics and main thematic areas of the collection. Specific Africa-related descriptors include the names of countries and regions, ethnic groups, African languages, African polities and political parties in Africa.

The thesaurus was completed in 2006 and replaces the numerical classification system used by the ASC library for subject indexing until then. All subject codes previously assigned to titles in the ASC catalogue have been converted into thesaurus descriptors.

With the African Studies Thesaurus the ASC Leiden aims to facilitate the identification of relevant indexing terminology, provide a tool for managing African Studies information resources, and improve subject access to its own resources. At present, thesaurus terms are displayed alphabetically, but a systematic display of terms in broad subject categories is envisaged in the future. The thesaurus will be continually updated and improved and we welcome your comments and feedback.