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Frequently Asked Questions

General content questions

1. What is the Oxford African American Studies Center?
The Oxford African American Studies Center provides students, teachers, and scholars with an authoritative and comprehensive source on the African American experience. This includes selected content from more than twenty Oxford University Press reference publications contributed by top scholars in a range of disciplines. Find out more.

2. Other than the core reference content, what is available on the site?
The site includes a carefully selected editorial program of supplementary material. This includes over 700 primary source documents with commentaries, approximately 2,500 images with an ongoing image research program, over 300 charts, tables and graphs, maps, timelines, and learning resources for students and teachers. Find out more.

3. Has all the content from the original site been brought over to the new site?
At the time of relaunch in January of 2020, all of AASC’s core content—articles, images, maps, and videos—has been brought over to a newly designed, mobile responsive site providing improved user experience. Image and video illustrations no longer appear as individual search results but are still embedded in the relevant articles. Review the Help page for more information about searching and browsing on the new site.

Most supplementary material—Focus On essays, Timelines, and Interviews—is also available in the Tools and Resources section of the site (formerly called the Learning Center). In the coming months, we’ll be restoring Reference Guides, Further Reading pages, Family Trees, and Lesson Plans and adding to this freely available content. Find out more on What’s Changed.

4. I’m not seeing the titles of different reference works on search results. How do I know which resource each entry was written for?
We’ve added a brief note at the top of each entry that was originally published in a print reference work identifying its source.

5. How do I run advanced searches, including for media, bibliographic content, and primary sources?
We’ve changed the browse and search options and design for a cleaner, more intuitive user experience, and improved the underlying metadata to support it. All available search facets are displayed on Advanced Search in the left sidebar, and you can apply multiple parameters to narrow your results. Combining search parameters will help you perform similar searches to those available on the previous site. Find out more on What’s Changed and learn more about how to search and browse in Help.

6. Can I still confine search results to African American Studies or Africa and Diaspora Studies?
Yes, these are now options under the “Subject” browse menu and search facet, and can be combined with other search parameters.

7. Are all images from the print sets included online?
We have made every effort to include all images where copyright allows. The display of images online is subject to a different set of copyright regulations than those that apply to print publication. We have included any illustrations where we own the copyright or which have no copyright restrictions and have also obtained a substantial number of permissions to display images online. We will be increasing the number of images through our ongoing editorial update program.

8. How often is the Oxford African American Studies Center updated?
We update the site three to four times a year with new content and with revisions to existing articles. Updates will include articles from forthcoming print publications as well as content commissioned specifically for online publication. In addition, the editors will provide bi-monthly Focus On features on a topic of current or historical interest, freely available to all visitors to the site.

9. Do I have to subscribe to the site to access the Focus On feature?
No, the Focus On feature is freely available to all visitors to the site.

10. How do I cite articles from the Oxford African American Studies Center?
Bibliographic citation is provided in APA, Chicago, and MLA formats for all content included in the site by clicking on the "Cite" button on the article page. Users can also export citations through EndNote, ReferenceManager, and ProCite.

11. How do I submit a comment or correction?
If you have any general or specific comments on the content of an article or find a cross-reference link that is not working properly, please send an email to the editorial staff. When providing a comment about a specific article, please provide as much detail as possible and include the location of the page being referred to by copying and pasting the URL from your browser's address bar into your message. Comments will be reviewed and considered for inclusion in the next available update.

12. What is your policy on third party data mining?
Oxford University Press recognizes the research benefit of Text and Data Mining (TDM) across a variety of research fields. As such, we are happy to accommodate TDM for non-commercial use. Although researchers are not required to request permission for non-commercial text-mining, OUP is happy to offer consultation with a technical project manager to assist in planning your project, including avoidance of any technical safeguards triggers OUP has in place to protect the stability and security of our websites. To request a consultant for your TDM project, please e-mail Data.Mining@oup.com. OUP is also happy to consider any Commercial TDM requests. To request approval for TDM for commercial use, please email Data.Mining@oup.com.

13. What are your policies around the use of artificial intelligence?
We do not permit our authors to use generative AI to write content or create images, unless they are being used to discuss or to illustrate artificial intelligence, and are clearly cited or credited. See Author Use of Generative AI for more information.

Subscription questions

13. How do I subscribe to the Oxford African American Studies Center?
Annual subscriptions are available for schools, libraries and organizations. For complete pricing information or to subscribe, please contact us. Monthly and annual subscriptions are available for individuals.

14. Is it possible to have a free trial?
Free 30-day trials are available to libraries and institutions considering a subscription. Visit Free Trials for more information. If you are an individual and would like to try out the site, find out if your library or organization already subscribes or would like a free trial.

15. Are discounts available to consortia and consortia members?
Special pricing is available for library consortia. For further details, please get in touch with your consortium manager or contact us.

Access questions

16. I cannot access the Oxford African American Studies Center.

  • Library administrators

a) Please verify that you have submitted your library's signed subscriber agreement to OUP. All new subscriptions require a signed license agreement on file that has been verified prior to activating service.

b) Please verify that OUP has your library's most current IP address information on file. Administrators may verify account details from Subscriber Services. You will need an administrative login. If you have lost or forgotten your administrative password, you can also update or change this information from Subscriber Services.

c) If your library's IP information has been changed, please contact us to report the new address(es) or to update IP information currently registered.

d) Your library's access may have expired or been placed on hold if OUP has not received your subscription payment or if your free trial has expired. It is customary for OUP to contact subscribers before a renewal/anniversary date or trial expiration. For further assistance, please contact us.

  • Individual subscribers

e) You have entered an incorrect username or password or no longer have an active subscription. Please contact us.

17. Is remote access available?
Remote or off-site access is available to all institutional subscribers at no additional cost. For further assistance setting up remote access, please contact us.

18. Is library card access available?
Libraries have the option to allow patrons to access the site using their library barcode. Please have your librarian or administrator contact us for further details on setting up library card access.

19. I have forgotten my username and password.
If you are using access information provided by your library, please contact your school's librarian or administrator for library access information. Individual subscribers click here to reset your password.

Technical questions

20. Which browsers should I use?
The Oxford African American Studies Center is designed to display and function correctly on the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and MS Edge.

21. Is the site accessible to visually impaired users?
To help achieve our objective of excellence in research, scholarship and education and as part of our commitment to serving our customers and users, Oxford University Press is striving to make its products accessible to and inclusive of all our users, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive, or motor impairments. Visit the Accessibility page to find out more.

22. Is the Oxford African American Studies Center OpenURL compliant?
Yes, the site is compliant with both the 0.1 and 1.0 OpenURL specifications. To enable this feature for your institution, please access your account information in Subscriber Services. Your institution will need to have an OpenURL resolver.

23. What is the service identifier (sid) for OpenURL from the Oxford African American Studies Center?
oup:aasc

24. Can I add my library's logo to the website?
Yes. To set up a logo please contact us. Note that we no longer support customized logos for OpenURL resolvers.

25. Does Oxford African American Studies Center support federated searching?
Yes; the site can currently be accessed by federated search software via HTTP request and supports the method="get" using a base URL of: http://www.oxfordaasc.com/search/quick?_fmt=context &_refinePage=%2Fsearch%2Fadvanced_search.jsp& Followed by text=X where X is your search term. Separate search terms should separated with the .+. sign. For example: dream deferred: text=+dream+deferred

 

Subscriber Services

26. Are usage statistics available?
Usage statistics are available on a monthly basis to subscribing institutions and library consortia.

27. How do I access my institution's statistics?
Please visit Subscriber Services. Your administrative login will be required. If you have lost or forgotten your administrative login, please contact us.

28. How can I view or update my subscription record?
Institutions and individuals within North and South America may view or change their subscription details at our account management system. Subscribers outside of North and South America click here.

29. Is there a MARC record available?
Yes, you can download it directly from the AASC MARC record page. Note that on relaunch of AASC in January 2020, we changed to a single MARC record to cover all content. For questions about updating existing records, Contact Us.