Database on Islam in Burkina Faso (George A. Smathers Libraries - University of Florida)
Carrefour africain (3-11-1962)
Islam Burkina Faso is an open-access digital database containing archival materials, newspaper articles, Islamic publications and photographs related to Islam in Burkina Faso. Optical character recognition (OCR) was applied on every scanned document for full-text indexing along with an extensive use of metadata for simple and advanced searching across all items. The database, now containing more than 2,500 items, will have about 3,000 items in the future. The site also offers nearly 200 bibliographical references on Islam in Burkina Faso.
This resource provides a tool to overcome the difficulties often encountered in collecting primary sources in archival centers in West Africa. The database could be of particular interest for researchers interested in Islam in Burkina Faso as a teaching resource, a starting point for research, or to keep up with new publications.
In a second phase of the project, I will seek external funding to build a wider collaborative database on Islam in West Africa by including material from Côte d’Ivoire.
This resource provides a tool to overcome the difficulties often encountered in collecting primary sources in archival centers in West Africa. The database could be of particular interest for researchers interested in Islam in Burkina Faso as a teaching resource, a starting point for research, or to keep up with new publications.
In a second phase of the project, I will seek external funding to build a wider collaborative database on Islam in West Africa by including material from Côte d’Ivoire.
Bibliographic database on Islam in West Africa
Using Zotero, a free and open-source reference management software, I created a bibliographic database on Islam in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Togo. It contains more than 400 references. The database can be consulted, browsed and searched on the Zotero web interface: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2359965/bibliographic_database_islam_west_africa/items.
Zotero users can join the group bibliography on the Zotero website by simply clicking on the “Join group” button. When you next synchronise your Zotero database, the entire group bibliography with its subcategories will appear in the groups section of your own Zotero. You can then use the functions of Zotero you are used to such as editing bibliographies in any given citation style, citing references as you write. You can also drag references (or whole collections) into your own database (“My library”) for annotation or adding files of your own.
If you use a RSS-feed reader, you can add the feed for the group bibliography to be notified on new references added to the group bibliography: https://api.zotero.org/groups/2359965/items/top?start=0&limit=25&format=atom&v=1.
Zotero users can join the group bibliography on the Zotero website by simply clicking on the “Join group” button. When you next synchronise your Zotero database, the entire group bibliography with its subcategories will appear in the groups section of your own Zotero. You can then use the functions of Zotero you are used to such as editing bibliographies in any given citation style, citing references as you write. You can also drag references (or whole collections) into your own database (“My library”) for annotation or adding files of your own.
If you use a RSS-feed reader, you can add the feed for the group bibliography to be notified on new references added to the group bibliography: https://api.zotero.org/groups/2359965/items/top?start=0&limit=25&format=atom&v=1.