African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (14)

It's been a while since I updated the spreadsheet, but here's the good news: there are now over 7800 items from over 180 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet. And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. :-)

So, here's the Diaspora spreadsheet embedded (be patient while it loads; it takes a while for thousands of things to load in the post):

You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

I've probably got another couple updates to do to this spreadsheet, but I'm nearly done inventorying the African Diaspora materials at the Archive, which means I'm almost ready to start writing the Reader's Guide to African Diaspora Folktales at the Internet Archive.

I'll be using the same model as in the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive: 200 book entries, followed by 50 public domain stories. I might even do more than 50 public domain stories since there is so much more public domain material to work with. I'm really excited to get started.

Here's where you can your free download of the African Folktales guide!

Bibliography.LauraGibbs.net

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (13)

Here's the latest: there are now over 7300 items from over 150 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet. Here's the spreadsheet embedded (be patient while it loads; it takes a while for thousands of things to load in the post):

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

Plus, don't forget about the Anansi Book Club. The book for this week is John Steptoe's Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. Here's a blog post about it, plus a Twitter thread I wrote over the week. The Archive has multiple copies of this one!

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (12)

My life has been so hectic lately that I completely forgot to do the update last week. But this week I remembered! There are now over 7200 items from 132 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet. Plus I just realized I can embed the spreadsheet here in the blog post; let's see if this works:

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

Helen Nde and I are wrapping up our first week of the ABC Anansi Book Club. Here's some information about the May books, and you can find more information at the Anansi Book Club website. 

We're on our third book now: Ashley Bryan's The Night Has Ears: African Proverbs. Here's a blog post about it, plus a Twitter thread I wrote over the week.

and it's time for the next book in the #AnansiBookClub for May, just a click away at the @InternetArchive thanks to the power of #ControlledDigitalLending:
a collection of African proverbs illustrated by the great Ashley Bryan!
THE NIGHT HAS EARShttps://t.co/0HkoAv7lJx

1/n 🧵 https://t.co/RZV9HznSPs pic.twitter.com/GBTJNnyJZH

— Laura Gibbs (@OnlineCrsLady) May 14, 2022

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (11)

I've crossed a new threshold for the African Diaspora spreadsheet: there are now over 7000 items from 108 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

Helen Nde and I are wrapping up our first week of the ABC Anansi Book Club. Here's some information about the May books, and you can find more information at the Anansi Book Club website. 

Our first book was Aardema's Who's in Rabbit's House, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Here's a blog post about it, plus a Twitter thread I wrote over the week.

Happy May Day! today is also the start for #AnansiBookClub... and our first book of the month: WHO'S IN RABBIT'S HOUSE? a Maasai folktale retold by Verna Aardema and beautifully illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon; @Internet Archive has 2 copies available:https://t.co/S3DypmFpY2 pic.twitter.com/Z6EnwY7SFr

— Laura Gibbs (@OnlineCrsLady) May 1, 2022

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (10)

I'm back after a week off with another update to the African Diaspora spreadsheet: there are now over 6800 items from 108 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

Plus, a reminder: Helen Nde and I are going to be hosting a book club on Twitter starting in May: ABC Anansi Book Club. We'll be reading very short African folktale books, one each week, and you can vote on the selections for May! Here's some information about the May options. Cast your vote, and then join us at Twitter in the month of May using the hashtag #AnansiBookClub. You can find more information at the Anansi Book Club website. :-)

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (9)

Happy Friday, everybody! I'm still cruising along with the African folktales (and songs) spreadsheet: there are now over 6500 items from 100 different sources linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

I've also started the process of picking out which books and articles will go into the Reader's Guide for these Diaspora resources, just like for the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive. There will be some differences between them too: more articles as Diapora sources rather than being limited just to books, and probably more public domain stories to include too. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging about books and updating here as I go along.

Here's a collage of just a few of the books that I've added recently to the sheet. So much great material, all available thanks to Controlled Digital Lending from the Internet Archive!

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (8)

Wow, it's hard to believe that I've been working on the Diaspora spreadsheet for two months already... but the numbers don't lie, ha ha, and there are not over 6000 individual stories linked from the spreadsheet to the pages of books at the Internet Archive, everything just a click away! You can find it all at the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, where there are now over 90 separate sources indexed:

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there. You can find out more about how the spreadsheets work here.

Seeing this spreadsheet growing makes me confident that I'll be able to start working on a Reader's Guide for these sources starting this summer, just like I did for the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive. For the Diaspora book, I will probably have fewer sources that I include — maybe more like 100 sources, rather than 200 — but I will definitely want to include more public domain stories, with 100 stories instead of 50; the public domain sources for the Diaspora stories are much more abundant, and usually come from folklorists and anthropologists, as opposed to the colonial and missionary contexts of the African books.

Meanwhile, do take a look at the Reader's Guide if you have not done so already; free PDF, epub, and other formats too!

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (7)

I'm back on track with "Spreadsheet Friday" today, now with over 5600 stories listed in the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, from 84 different books and articles at the Internet Archive as sources.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there.

Plus, as promised, I've published the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive since last time! You can get your free ebook copy at Bibliography.LauraGibbs.net, and I also did a presentation about that together Helen Nde of @MythicAfricans at Twitter; the presentation is here.

I'm not sure when exactly it will be, but there will be a companion Reader's Guide for the African Diaspora folktales too. Slowly, slowly it's accumulating. :-)

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (6)

Another "Spreadsheet Friday" and I've crossed yet ANOTHER milestone: there are over 5000 stories now listed in the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, from 75 different books and articles at the Internet Archive as sources. I got a big boost this time from the huge number of items I indexed from the books by Parsons that were the focus this week.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there.

I'll be talking about these two spreadsheet projects, and also the whole African and Diaspora folktale project, on March 30, together with Helen Nde who is the inspiring person behind @MythologicalAfricans (yay!). The talk is part of the Internet Archive's Library-as-Laboratory series. You can find out more about that at the Internet Archive blog. 

The recording of this week's talk (featuring the web archiving cohort from Archives Unleashed, plus the new Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online project) is available to listen to already, and then Helen and I will be coming up next time! 

I'll be taking this week off at the blog in order to focus totally on proofreading the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive so that I can publish it before the talk. So..... if all goes well, my next post here at the blog will have the final version of that book. You can see the working draft here. :-)

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (5)

Another "Spreadsheet Friday" and I've crossed a new milestone: there are over 4000 stories now listed in the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, from 65 different books and articles at the Internet Archive as sources!

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there.

If you're curious about the process behind these two projects, I'll be giving a talk on March 30, together with Helen Nde of @MythologicalAfricans (yay!), as part of the Internet Archive's Library-as-Laboratory series. You can find out more about that at the Internet Archive blog. The recording of last week's presentation is available, then there will be another talk this Wednesday (March 16), and then Helen and I will be coming up next in the series after that on March 30. :-)

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (4)

Well, it's already "Spreadsheet Friday" again; I didn't get as much done this week as I had hoped (see why below!), but I did add new stories to the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, so there are now over 3500 stories indexed there:

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also, with over 10,000 stories there.

As I've explained in previous spreadsheet posts, you can search, sort, and filter this public sheet using all the usual Google Sheet features, and you can also make a copy of the sheet if you want to add your own columns, etc. 

The reason why I didn't get a lot done on the spreadsheet this week is that I have moved into intensive editing mode on the Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive, which is based on those months of blogging here about African folktales. I hope to get this book published by the end of the month, and today I finished the crossindexing, so there are now useful threads for people to follow that lead from one book entry to another book entry that has something in common; you can see how that works in the current draft: Reader's Guide.

Hopefully all the things I've been learning from this book project will help me to do a good job with the Reader's Guide to African Diaspora Folktales at the Internet Archive when the time comes! From the sheer optimism that comes from a productive week, I created a book cover for that project too. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of book covers there (yet!), but it's early days: still lots more books to blog about here and then to add to the collage. :-)

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (3)

Well, it's already "Spreadsheet Friday" again... and the last spreadsheet update for Black History Month, but of course I'll be back with more African Diaspora books in March and beyond. There's still lots more to do.

So, here's the latest version of the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, and I crossed a nice milestone this week: over 3000 stories (3032 to be exact) from 46 different books and articles.

Meanwhile, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also (I ended up with over 10,000 individual stories there), and my long-term goal is to be able to share some good resources here for people who want to research the African origins of the Diaspora stories.

For more information about the spreadsheet project, you can browse previous posts, and what I wanted to end with today is a great piece from the San Francisco Chronicle about Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive. If you haven't followed the news about the mega-publishers who are suing Internet Archive in order to put an end to Controlled Digital Lending, you can learn more about that here: Inside a former S.F. church, a battle for the future of knowledge.

If the publishers get their way, all the digital books I've been writing about at this blog will be destroyed... the only resources that will remain are the public domain resources from 1926 and earlier, trapping us in the racist and colonial context of those publications. We desperately need a library like the Internet Archive so that we can have access to the traditional stories of African and African American storytellers: right now, these books are available to anyone, just a click away, thanks to the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending project. If you want to find out more, visit Library Futures; there's lots more you can learn there too!

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (2)

Well, it's already "Spreadsheet Friday" again! This week was really busy for me, so I didn't get a lot of work done on the African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet, but I made some progress! There are now 2600 stories from 37 different books.

And, of course, the big African Folktale Spreadsheet is available also (I ended up with over 10,000 individual stories there).

As I've explained in previous spreadsheet posts, you can search, sort, and filter this public sheet using all the usual Google Sheet features, and you can also make a copy of the sheet if you want to add your own columns, etc. The search is just by the story title, but that's a good place to begin. So, for example, if I'm looking for rabbits (and I'm always looking for rabbits!), I can search and get over 100 results!

I can also set up a filter so that the rabbit results are the only ones I see:

Those are just rabbits in the story titles; of course there are more rabbits out there. So, when I find a book that is a likely source to explore for rabbits, I can use the Internet Archive's own search tools to search the text of the book for rabbits. I just click on a link, check out the book (yay for Controlled Digital Lending!), and then I can search the book for all the rabbits in there. Here, for example, is Hughes' and Bontemps' Book of Negro Folklore: there are plenty of rabbits in there beyond just the stories with rabbit in the title! For example, I found this rabbit verse from a song along with some other animal references in the "Blues" section of the book:

You can see the search results BEFORE you check out the book, and you can also share the link with the search results already indicated too, which is a great way for teachers to introduce students to the power of search: as soon as the student gets there, they can see the search results and proceed accordingly! Here's the Hughes-Bontemps book with the rabbit search results in the link.

So, my little spreadsheet is really just a jumping-off point, a gateway into the Internet Archive where you can use the powerful text searches available there, helping you to find what you're looking for.

African Diaspora at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (1)

Well, it's Friday (Happy Friday, everybody!), and readers of this blog may remember that during the African folktale weeks of this project, I was sharing a spreadsheet with individual story titles and links to the Internet Archive; you can find out more about the spreadsheet here: African Folktale Spreadsheet. I ended up with over 10,000 individual stories. 

I've now got a spreadsheet up and running for the African Diaspora folktales also; you can find that here: African Diaspora Folktale Spreadsheet. It already has over 2000 items from 28 different books so far. (As you can see, I've focused on indexing some of the big anthologies, which is how I ended up with so many stories from just a few sources indexed so far.)

As I've explained in previous spreadsheet posts, you can search, sort, and filter this public sheet using all the usual Google Sheet features, and you can also make a copy of the sheet if you want to add your own columns, etc. There's an overview sheet where I note the addition of new items (see bottom of the overview sheet for the updates from most recent to oldest), which allows you to copy over new items to your own new sheet if you are taking that approach.

Just like with the African spreadsheet, I have no idea right now just how far this will go, but I'm excited to find out. I think this might be especially useful because some of the most important early work in African American folktales appeared in articles for the Journal of American Folklore, but were not reprinted elsewhere after that. Anyway, I've got lots of Internet Archive items bookmarked and ready to go, and I'll keep providing spreadsheet updates now every Friday about how it is going. :-)

Also, if you have not read it yet, I highly recommend you take a look at Chris Freeland's great piece on Controlled Digital Lending and the publishers who are suing Internet Archive in order to shut this great service down, demanding that they actually destroy the scans of the books which people have generously donated to the Archive. As you can guess, the thought of that breaks my heart... yes, I have all these books on my own bookshelves at home, but my work as a scholar is so much more valuable now that I can share "my" bookshelf with the world thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending. Let's hope they win the suit and establish a legal precedent for Controlled Digital Lending that will allow other libraries to carry on this great project too!

Librarian's lament: Digital books are not fireproof

🔥🔥 Turns out there's more than one way to burn a book. In Texas they are banning them. But as librarian @ChrisFreeland explains, corporate publishers are suing the @InternetArchive to destroy 1.4 million digital books. https://t.co/mTW6ZJWP5M

— Internet Archive (@internetarchive) February 10, 2022

Africa at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (10)

Here is the final update post about the spreadsheet of African Folktales at the Internet Archive, at least for a while. That's because I'll be switching over to African American and Caribbean books starting in February (Black History Month!)... and that will mean a new spreadsheet full of books and stories. But don't worry: I will be keeping an eye out for new African story sources that get added to the Archive, and I'll update the spreadsheet accordingly.

For now, I am excited to say that the spreadsheet of African folktales (which includes more broadly myths, legends, all kinds of traditional storytelling) ended up here with over 10,000 items; 10,077 to be precise. Those stories come from 545 different books and articles that you can find online at the Internet Archive; all the links are in the spreadsheet, story by story. When I started this project back in May (here's the very first post), I knew I would find great resources at the Archive... but I never imagined it would be this comprehensive. There are materials here for readers at any level — K-12 students, college students, independent scholars, and all the book-lovers out there — to explore the storytelling traditions of Africa in real depth.

Some of those are public domain sources, and some are more recent publications available thanks to Controlled Digital Lending. If you are not aware of the current legal battle around Controlled Digital Lending, I would urge you to learn more about that and to lend your support. You can find out more here about the Internet Archive's legal fight in defense of their right to loan out digital copies of the physical books in its possession based on strict controls that mean only one copy of the book is ever in circulation at any one time:

Libraries lend books, and must continue to lend books: Internet Archive responds to publishers’ lawsuit

If you use Twitter, you can tweet your support with the hashtag #ControlledDigitalLending.

As I've explained in previous spreadsheet updates, you can do searches and create data filters at this shared spreadsheet of stories from Africa, and you can also copy the spreadsheet for your own use. For example, I have my own copy of the spreadsheet where I keep track of which stories have animals, stories I want to use for a "tiny tales" project, etc. etc.

Below are just a few of the books I've indexed since the last update; the links below go to the book at Internet Archive: so many beautiful books, and all just a click away thanks to Controlled Digital Lending. As you'll see, one of the new books is one that I wrote, using the great resources available online at the Archive. So, as always, THANK YOU, Internet Archive, for making it possible for us to learn about the great storytelling traditions of Africa this way.

Tchana. Sense Pass King

Wilson. The Great Minu

Berry. Don't Leave an Elephant to Go and Chase a Bird

Bryan. The Adventures of Aku

Dresser. The Rainmaker's Dog

Onyefulu. Chinye

McDermott. Zomo the Rabbit

Gibbs. Tiny Tales from Africa: The Animals, vol. 2

Africa at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (9)

Here is the second spreadsheet update of 2022; you can read about the evolution of this spreadsheet project in the previous updates. There are now over 9400 stories listed from over 350 different books and articles, and I'm getting near the end of indexing all the stories I can find at the Internet Archive, so in February I'll be moving on to a related project: indexing African American and Caribbean stories, which is perfect for Black History Month (observed in the U.S. during the month of February).

Meanwhile, as always, you can access the spreadsheet here: African Tales Spreadsheet, and also by the link in the tab navigation above.

In the spreadsheet, you'll find links for each story to the Internet Archive page, plus links to versions of the stories that I've written (more about those tiny versions of the stories here: Africa.LauraGibbs.net).

As I've explained in previous posts, you can do searches and create data filters, and you can also copy the spreadsheet for your own use. For example, I have my own copy of the spreadsheet where I keep track of which stories have animals, stories I want to use for a "tiny tales" project, etc. etc.

These are just a few of the books I've indexed since the last update; the links below go to the book at Internet Archive: enjoy!

Price. Bantu Tales

Medcroft. Kalulu's Pumpkins

Pirotta. African Tales

Poland. Small Clay Bull

Larungu. Myths and Legends From Ghana 

for African-American Cultures

Mhlophe. African Tales

Oram. Counting Leopard's Spots

Poland. The Wood-Ash Stars

Fagborun. Tortoise and Other Animals

McCall Smith. Folktales from Africa