The Seminar on Accessing Information in Southern Africa (SAIRSA) National and Subregional Bibliographic Control, held in Johannesburg in 1996, recognised among others the crucial role of information in national development; the importance of making optimal use of indigenous information; that a system for comprehensive and up to date bibliographic control of the national output is a prerequisite in each country for utilizing information for development; and that the efforts of individual nations can be reinforced through regional cooperation. Recommendations of the SAIRSA committed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to support efforts to establish national legislation for national bibliographic control agencies and legislation for legal deposit. Country reports showed lack of understanding on the part of most governments of the role of national bibliographic control and its support of socioeconomic development.

In my Africa: a guide to reference material (London, Hans Zell, 1993), works relating to the biological sciences were deliberately excluded. In order to fill a part of this gap, I am hoping to produce a series of lists of major reference sources relating to African flora and fauna. The first listing was concerned with sources relating to the birds of Africa (see ARD, 75, 1997, 12-38); the present article covers African mammals.

In the zoological context, ‘reference material’ is defined as works which can be used to identify mammal species and their distribution within Africa, and to find information on their habits and behaviour. The major categories are:

Taxonomic checklists which attempt to establish complete listings of scientific and popular names for all species known to have occurred within a particular region (zoogeographical, regional, national, a particular game park, etc.).