Internet African History Sourcebook: Website Review

The Internet African History Sourcebook (IAHS)http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/africa/africasbook.html is a website designed for educational purposes. The African History (Sourcebook) site is actually one of eight subsets created from three major online sourcebooks. The major sourcebooks are entitled Ancient History Sourcebook, Medieval Sourcebook, and Modern History Sourcebook. The IAHS website has eight other history sourcebook subsets included on its main page listed as follows: East Asian, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, LGBT, Women’s, Global, and Science. The three major source books and the eight sourcebook subsets comprise the only hyper-linked heading section on this website, with one additional hyperlink to Halsall Home.
The redeeming quality of this site is that it links to the Halsall Home Page, a link which provides useful background info and additional guidance and resources (i.e. a search function) to make the Sourcebook experience an enjoyable one. The entire Internet History Sourcebooks Project [IHSP] was designed to provide easy access to primary sources and other teaching materials to the serious minded researcher in a non-commercial environment, meaning without excessive advertising or layout. This site, as well as the others, was developed and is edited by Paul Halsall with the aid of numerous other contributors. The web space and server support is provided by Fordham University, the History Department at Fordham University, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies, which lends credibility to the overall project.
The sites are maintained by Paul Halsall. However, it is more accurate to say that these sites are not, this spite specifically, maintained (well) by Paul Halsall. The IAHS site was last updated February 20, 2007, almost a year ago. The information on this particular main page remains static. Additionally, the Link Exchange (LE) Fast Counter does not work properly. Apparently this function is no longer supported because the website LE Fast Counter is stated to record the number of visits since June 10, 1998, approximately ten years ago, there is nothing provided.
The layout design is basic. There are three basic colors used: red, yellow, and green. The text is in black with links in blue. There is a kente cloth design banner that runs alongside the left border of the webpage. The colors in the kente cloth are red, yellow, and green. These colors may or may not draw upon the symbolic meanings of Akan kente colors. Red means political and spiritual moods, bloodshed, and/or sacrificial rites. Yellow means preciousness, royalty, wealth, and/or fertility. Green means vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth, and/or spiritual renewal. The background color for the rest of the webpage/website is a dull, shade of yellow.
There are no advertisements or banners on the main webpage which is supposedly an enhancement to the site. There is only one visual image, which is a (recurring) picture on the website, to the left of the major topic headings on this page. According to the Contents heading, which functions as a Table of Contents to the Webpage, there are thirteen major headings on this page.
The main page is very easy to navigate, since there is only one page dedicated to this particular site. Any link beyond the main page directs the user away from the African History Sourcebook website, without a link or option to return to the main page. This transition is obvious because every identifiable facet of the site changes, including the background, the color scheme, etc. The only way to return to the main page is to hit the computer’s back button. There is no back button implanted on the subsequent webpage. Each click on the IAHS main page holds uncertainty and suspense, much like a roll of the dice.
This uncertainty includes the reliability of the content as well as the credibility of the author/contributor/website. Whether or not the links worked at all was also uncertain. For example, the link to H. Kamuzu Banda (former President of Malawi): Apology to People of Malawi, Jan 4th 1996 [At Geocities] is a dead link.
Many of the links from this webpage directs users to other sites, non-discriminately. Some of the links direct the user to university websites (e.g. UGA, Fordham University, etc.), some to amateur websites (e.g. Mr. Dowling.com), some to professional websites (e.g. the Humanities & Social Sciences Online (HNet), The Atlantic Monthly (Online), and government run websites such as kenyaweb.com) , some credible(e.g. PBS), some suspect (e.g. geocities.com), and some to sites that require as much time and energy to verify the source as it takes to research the information originally sought after.
In a simplified attempt to make rhyme or reason of this site, there is a brief notes section prior to the Contents section which attempts to explain the coding system of the various links.
Aside from the links directly to documents, there are links labeled 2D to indicate the information provided is a secondary review, discussion, or article on a given topic. The links labeled MEGA lets users know they are being directed to a mega site which tracks resources on specified topics. Finally, there are links coded WEB which directs users to purportedly websites focused on a specific issue, offering serious educational value.
Though the site is not aesthetically enticing or organized to be user-friendly, there is much valuable information contained within its immediate and referenced pages to substantiate its existence and usefulness to the scholar and the scholarly.