Microsoft Encarta Africana, a multimedia encyclopedia of African and African-American culture and history edited by Professors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and K. Anthony Appiah, will be released in February, Microsoft announced July 30.

The encyclopedia, the culmination of a two-year partnership between Microsoft and a team of Afro-American studies scholars working under Gates and Appiah, who is a professor of Afro-American studies and philosophy. It will contain more than 3,000 articles as well as a number of maps, graphics, video clips and newspaper articles.

"The story of Africa and its people will be told in a way never before possible," said Gates, who is W.E.B. DuBois professor of Afro-American Studies.

Gates said the encyclopedia fulfills his oft-expressed wish to compile the first encyclopedia African idea first advanced by W.E.B. DuBois, class of 1890, in 1909.