Author(s): OAASC Editor in Chief is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University. The editorial advisory board includes Ira Berlin, University of Maryland, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, University of Pennsylvania, Paul Finelman, University of Tulsa College of Law, Trudier Harris, University of North Carolina, Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University, Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate University, and Valerie Smith, Princeton University.

Domain: This .com website is offered for subscription by libraries through Oxford University Press, a commercial publisher that specializes in scholarly, academic and authoritative sources produced through a refereed process.

Open/Subscription: The site requires a login through your library card number from a subscriber. Academic subscriptions start at $495 per year.
Description: The Oxford African American Studies Center seeks to be a comprehensive collection of scholarship and reference information about the history, culture and biography of African Americans. The search engine allows the user to match names, titles and subject areas to access over 8,000 articles from Oxford’s authoritative reference works. There are over 100 signed primary sources with commentaries, online articles by featured guest scholars, over 1000 images, over 100 maps, 200 charts and tables and over 6,000 biographies. The site includes 5 major encyclopedias.

Organization: The search engine for resources is organized for the user to search by title, text and author, or era, historical period, or category. The site and its search engine loaded instantly from the Crown Library list of indexes. The site is easy to navigate. The user selects the area for a search, Main Search, Biography Search, Image and Multimedia Search, Primary Source Search and Bibliography Search.

Coverage: The Center covers everything known about African Americans from the end of the medieval period to today. There are new featured scholars contributing online articles every month. The Era search categories are all organized by time period, From Before 1400 to 1972-2006: The Contemporary World. Each primary resource entry, such as a speech by Lincoln, and each article are carefully dated for historical accuracy.

Search: There are three main boxes for main site searchers, the title, text and author box, the Era box with historical periods “From Before 1400” to the contemporary era. There is a topical Category box with a list of topics in African American studies. The content of the site in terms of accessing an extensive range of resources is impressive. The search functions are easy to navigate. The user can select an area for their search that directs the engine to appropriate items. For example, a search for Zora Neal Hurston in the Biography area returned seven excellent articles from authoritative encyclopedias and biography resources.

Hyperlinks: There are links embedded in each article or entry that may lead to resources in the Center or on the Internet, cross referencing names, places and significant events in the article or entry.

Fulltext/Citation: Full text articles are available, full abstracts and citations are provided. MARC records are also available for most resources accessible through the site database, and may be included in the subscriber catalogue.

Peer review: The Center references both peer reviewed resources and resources compiled by editorial boards and staff in individual reference works.

Format: Materials are organized through the Center and its search links, for example Image and Multimedia Search lead to items accessible in that area, pictures, photos and movies.

Entries: There are signed articles with original commentaries available; there are also general encyclopedia articles and biographical dictionary articles that may be unsigned. For example, under the Era 1860-1865, a search for Mississippi leads to an unsigned encyclopedia article with a college level bibliography. Primary sources are by the author. The Center allows you to search the widest possible range of published authoritative sources on African American biography.

Links: There is a Links tab that leads to a list of fully functional and up to date resources on a wide range of topics. There is a Links tab to online website resources that are free. The links are organized by subject, and cover a wide range of research interests from labor statistics to a PBS documentary about the Black Panthers.

Graphical elements: The photographs, maps, charts and timelines for the site and part of the reference items accessed through the search engine for the site are extensive. Some graphical work is included in most major articles.

Audience: This work is suitable for junior to senior high school through professional research users. The Center is focused on authoritative reference and scholarship that is college to University level, but the information can be useful to the public as well. The number and quality of primary resources is fantastic and resources include anyone concerned about the African American experience and community, for example speeches by Angelina Grimke, a white abolitionist who grew up in a family that owned slaves. Entries are jargon free and clearly written.

Library: A comprehensive virtual reference Center like this one is suitable for a public library, college or University library.

Currency: The Center site is updated regularly once a month. Dates of new releases are individual to the linked resources, may be updated 3-4 times per year.

Reviews: The African American Studies Center is favorably reviewed and highly regarded. CHOICE, Kirkus Review and School Library Journal favorably recommend the AASC site.
See: Kirkus Reviews; 9/1/2006, Vol. 74 Issue 17, Special Section p6-6, 1/3p

Oxford African American Studies Center. Oxford. Academic subscriptions start at $495.00/year. Internet Resource. Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2007jan CHOICE.

http://www.oxfordaasc.com/

[Visited Oct'06] All academic libraries should consider acquiring this database, as it combines high-quality content in more than 7,500 articles with a particularly well-designed interface. These Oxford reference sources are currently included: Black Women in America (2nd ed., CH, Nov’05, 43-1312), The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature (CH, Sep’01, 39-0015), Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 (CH, Nov’06, 44-1295), Africana (CH, Nov’05, 43-1309), and materials from selected “Oxford Companions.” When the African American National Biography and Encyclopedia of African American Art and Architecture are published, the reference content of the database will be complete. Oxford has developed an interface specifically for this resource. Searchers are offered a menu of five options: Search, Browse, Timelines, Links, and Learning Center. Five types of searches are available: main search, biography, image, primary sources, and bibliography. Users may limit searches using title, author, text, eras, and categories. They may select search results according to content and type. A quick search option is available on all screens. Biographies, Subject Entries, Primary Sources, Images, Maps, and Charts and Tables can be browsed.
Time lines provides a general chronology or a chronological overview of topics including women’s history, business and labor, sports, military history, literature, and Africa and the Diaspora. The Links section consists of freely available Internet resources. The Learning Center, designed for elementary and secondary teachers, does not yet contain the lesson plans and study guides promised in the sales brochure. Record displays are accompanied by hyperlinked suggestions for refining the search, hyperlinked cross-references, and a bibliography. They offer options for printing, e-mailing, and citing references, along with the ability to save them in EndNote, Reference Manager, or ProCite. Oxford plans to update this resource three or four times a year. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic libraries; all levels.
– M. Stark, Southern Methodist University

See School Library Journal, recommending AASC for 7th grade and up:
Title:
THE OXFORD AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER. By: Brisco, Shonda, School Library Journal, 03628930, Jul2006, Vol. 52, Issue 7
Oxford University Press www.OxfordAASC.com
GRADES 7 and up.
COST Flat rate of $450 for K-12 schools. District pricing is $450 for first building and $200 for each additional building. For universities, public libraries, and other nonprofits, unlimited access starts at $895 up to a maximum of $3,795. Alternative simultaneous use price is $495 for the first user, $995 for up to five users, and $150 for each additional user. Individual subscriptions are also available.
THE BIG PICTURE If you lack resources on the history, achievements, and contributions of African Americans, the Oxford African American Studies Center (AASC) is one of the first databases that provides in one product significant research materials on well-known individuals, documents, historical events, as well as lost and scattered fragments of African-American history. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., AASC is not only unique in its content but also in its ease of use and browseability. AASC provides students, teachers, and scholars with a wealth of resources: over 5,000 biographies; over 3,000 subject entries, ranging from Hank Aaron to Zumbi (the 17th-century Afro-Brazilian hero); primary source documents dating back to 1600, over 1000 images; maps of 90 countries; and charts and tables with information on demographics, politics, and more. Add a multilayered timeline and a specially selected list of Internet resources to provide additional research, lesson plans, classroom tools, and archival sources.
LOOK & FEEL AASC has a clean, graphic, and easy-to-navigate home page with five sections that include tidbits to entice browsing. The “Feature of the Month” section (free to all) offers a monthly overview of extraordinary individuals or events, while “Did You Know?” and “What’s Inside?” provide additional information about the content. A “Quick Search” box is at the top right for basic searching. At the extreme left, navigation tabs on the “Content Dashboard” are “Search,” “Browse,” “Timelines,” “Links,” and “Learning Center”; they provide drop-down boxes for additional searching capabilities. Students with limited searching skills can easily browse these categories to begin research or find specific types of information under each category. While each search page changes slightly, the navigation bar remains consistent, providing an easy way to maneuver from point to point.
HOW IT WORKS Students have two searching capabilities on the home page. The “Quick Search” box allows for a standard search using self-generated and Boolean search terms while the five subject tab listings on the navigation bar offer menu-driven content from which to explore. However, once within the specific subject area, students are allowed to use self-generated terms to research the subject content. To search exact terms, use quotation marks. The database supports the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT, as well as wildcards.
On the main search page, students have more control over the results and the range of searching since the database provides limiters that include the historical era (i.e. “Before 1400: Ancient and Medieval Worlds”), as well as Category of Interests (i.e. “Arts and Leisure”). Within each article, the “Look It Up” feature defines unfamiliar terms or phrases, allowing opportunities for independent research. Additional or related content on topics searched are presented as hyperlinks to research pages.
A “Biography” search allows the student to type in a known name or specific first and last names of individuals. Using additional information, such as birth and death dates or professions, students can search for unique or obscure figures within African-American history. With “Image” search, students can locate photos by title, caption, source, collection, or era, while a “Primary Source” search allows searching for original documents by title, text, author, year, commentary, era, or category. These two search areas include a wealth of often-missed historical resources that can enhance the classroom curriculum and inspire students to investigate new areas within history. The “Timeline” search includes women’s history, business, sports, military, and Africa.
Each entry can be printed or e-mailed, and for those who hate citing database resources, AASC offers an exact citation format (in either MLA or Chicago format). The citation can be downloaded and imported into a citation management software program or entered into a word document. A “Links Search” offers controlled, quality sites for additional research and information on specific subjects. Some of the same categories in the main search are listed here, bringing consistency to the Internet search.
FOR STUDENTS & TEACHERS Students and teachers in both middle school and high school should easily locate information because of the specialized search components that prompt and guide the research. Basic browsing can provide students who don’t understand how to construct database search strings with an alphabetical listing of topics. In addition, a “Filter List” section provides category information to guide the student to a specific topic. Search results are also broken into categories that are listed above the subject entry results. These categories further divide and enumerate the subjects into their specific format: biographies, primary documents, subject entries, photos, maps, images, charts, or tables.
Report Card AASC is a great subject-specific resource that, for years, has been lacking in many school libraries. Because the core reference sources, most multivolume (Africana, 2nd edition; Black Women in America, 2nd edition; African American National Biography; Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895; and the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature) are not generally found in school library collections, this database provides students with a new depth of historical, biographical, and scholarly materials on African Americans. The African American Studies Center rates a strong A; it might rate an A+ later in 2007 when scheduled updates should further enhance its depth and usability. With content updates every three months, this database will definitely surpass most collections found in school libraries. This is a great opportunity to offer a well-developed, easy-to-use specialized database on a subject area that is never fully covered by print resources.