|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst headquartered in Dakar, IFAN developed regional bases in St. Louis, Abidjan, Bamako, Cotonou, Niamey, Ouagadougou and associated centres in Douala and Lomé. |
 Main building of IFAN, Dakar |
Since independence, the regional bases have been autonomous and the arena of research at IFAN has tended to be more confined to Senegal and the surrounding sub-region. In 1986, the name of the institute was extended to IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop following the death of the University's first Senegalese chancellor and famous professor.
For more information on the mission and research activities of IFAN (in French), click here.
IFAN maintains a website at http://www.refer.sn/sngal_ct/rec/ifan/accueil.htm and may be contacted by e-mail at bifan@telecomplus.sn
Library and archives at IFAN
|
IFAN maintains an invaluable library and archives which have been built up over the colonial period and after. When the French government handed over the Institute at independence it also handed over much of the accumulated archives of the AOF including books, maps, administrative documents, school and educational books, newspapers and journals, postal records and much more. Some of these resources have been recorded on computerised databases, otheres are listed in a card catalogue at the Institute library housed in the main building at IFAN, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Work is in progress to list all of the resources on databases and to make these more accessible to the wider academic world by way of the World Wide Web (Internet). Meanwhile, the staff at the IFAN library are also doing invaluable work in attempting to maintain these irreplaceable resources, faced as they are with problems of dust, heat, humidity, maritime erosion, periodic inundation of the lower levels and paucity of funds. A project to assist IFAN in the recording and preservation of its archives is currently being researched by the Africa Information Centre (AIC) and funding is being actively sought in the North for the achievement of the aims of this project. Access to the library (the public space of which is air-conditioned) is currently available to personal callers only from Mondays to Fridays, and works may be ordered to be examined on the premises only. Photocopying facilities are available. |
 The Head Librarians of IFAN  Part of the newspaper archives at IFAN |
IFAN museums, Dakar and St. Louis
The IFAN museum off Place Soweto in the Plateau district of Dakar is one of the best in the world for those interested in the anthropology and art of the region. There are examples of village scenes, costumes, customs and carvings featuring most of the different ethnic groups of West Africa as well as an art gallery that features the work of local artists, past and present.
At St. Louis, the IFAN museum at Quai Henry Jay, features the history of Senegal and the peoples of the Senegambian region. There are hundreds of photographs as well as relics and records from the pre-colonial and colonial periods. St. Louis which was the original capital of French West Africa and its hinterland are particularly strongly featured.
Search this site|
|
|
IFAN was originally created in 1936 by the French colonial government for west and central Africa (AOF) based in Dakar,
Senegal and adopted the name Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire in 1966. From its inception, Ifan was an institute of
research into the human and physical sciences concentrating on West Africa and, in particular, the countries of the old AOF.
It is now one of 11 faculties of the Cheikh Anta Diop University into which it was integrated in 1960 at the time of Senegalese
independence but retains its own decision-making body and autonomous financing.