Archives Library

The Archives Library focuses on six collection areas:

  • Professional literature on archives, records management, and preservation
  • Namibian government publications
  • Namibian history
  • Reference works needed for historical research
  • Theses on Namibia
  • Grey literature on Namibia (unpublished reports, conference papers, etc)

A very small selection of reference works is available in a free-hand library in the Reading Room, while most items must be identified via the catalogues, and ordered into the Reading Room.

For preservation and space reasons, the library is shelved not in a classificatory system but in several series according to size and type, with consecutive numbering (numerus currens). Those are the series:

  • Books: AA, BB, CC, DD
  • Pamphlets: PA, PB, PC, PD
  • Periodicals: JZ, JX, ZZ
  • Conferences: CONF
  • Rare/restricted: RARA

Several private accessions of library material are shelved in the library with their own code as distinct collections:

  • BL - Brigitte Lau Collection (A.0718)
  • L - C.J.C. Lemmer Collection (A.0769)
  • NS - Confiscated National Socialist literature (A.0221) [uncatalogued]
  • TLE - Tore Linné Eriksen Collection (A.0827, AACRLS.119)

Additionally there is the digital library, consisting both of digital-born and digitized material:

  • ELFI – electronic monographs at V:\nan\ELFI\
  • ELJO – electronic periodicals at V:\nan\ELJO

Almost all of the Archives Library collection is catalogued to a high standard in the databases:

  • NAMLIT (NML) for all directly Namibia-related material. This catalogue also refers to Namibiana in other libraries, most notably the National Library Namibiana catalogued before April 2015
  • ARCAT for the entire Archives Library, including the Namibiana. However, Namibiana on ARCAT are often catalogued to a lower standard than on NAMLIT, and the holdings of Namibiana periodicals are only recorded on NAMLIT.
  • OPAC for the entire library holdings of National Library (as catalogued before April 2015) and National Archives. This is convenient but has somewhat reduced search and display facilities.

All catalogues also provide reference to the digital collection, although due to IT constraints the links to the digital library may sometimes not be working. Please enquire.

As with all other holdings of the National Archives, library books are not lent to users outside the archives premises.

 

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National Archives of Namibia
  • Physical Address: 1-3 Eugene, Marais Street, c/o Robert Mugabe Avenue, Windhoek
  • E-mail: National.Archives@nlas.gov.na
  • Tel: +264 61 293 5211/ +264 61 293 5221
  • Fax: +264 61 293 5217