At home, I have not been allowed to forget my early response to the announcement of the unilateral declaration of independence in Rhodesia - it was rather similar to that of a former British Prime Minister, who had perhaps not been obliged to live quite so closely with the consequences as, until recently, I have.

“Weeks rather than months” was, if I recall correctly, his prognosis, and I have to confess that I too thought it would soon collapse in the face of world disapproval. Instead of which, I have lived through the thirteen years since in growing frustration, increasingly aware that the effort that librarians in Rhodesia had hoped to be able to put into the promotion and development of libraries in that country would be unlikely to bear fruit - largely through lack of that essential fertiliser, hard cash.

What follows is a summary of a document dated Dec. 1st 1978, by Francis A. Kornegay, Jr., Associate Editor, African Bibliographic Centre, Washington DC. The report gives a summary of Mr. Kornegay's recent acquisitions trip and a limited survey of documentation activities on Southern Africa.

The International Security Assistance and Arms Control Act of 1977 authorized the preparation of a “Systematic and Comprehensive study of the development requirements of Southern Africa” and therefore a continuous flow of data on the various sections of the economies of the states of Southern Africa would be needed. The Act called for the “Organizing of a central repository of information and talent that could be drawn from other countries and organizations”.