The authors of the set of essays on various aspects of reviewing recently published in ARD (no. 102 [2007]:13-35) argue en ensemble that reviews continue to fill a function in scholarly communications—an unofficial system of checks and balances that can and often does set limits on how cases are presented to the public. I am less convinced of this than the authors, at least as to their value in the library acquisitions process. At any rate, the greater their value, the greater the need to optimize the production and reception by launching a number of reforms that would have the effect of providing this argument with grounds that could make it even stronger.

Book reviews have long been touted as a means to influence institutional purchasing, not only of scholarly books but of all books. Focusing on the former, it strikes me that this could never have been much the case.

In your interesting series of articles “Reviewing reviews” in ARD (no. 102, 2007) you invite further contributions to this debate, and so may I be permitted to add some observations from the perspective of a publisher or, more particularly, a publisher of African studies reference works.

In his article in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing David Henige states “unfortunately, most reference works are never reviewed outside the library literature, if there.” This is not our experience, even though we now make it a practise not to send out unsolicited review copies of our reference works to African studies or any other journals unless editors specifically request a copy, and provide some indication when a review might appear. We invite journal editors to request review copies by mailings of press releases, and email notifications of new books when published.

Over the past five years, the Yale University Divinity School Library has been acquiring a significant collection of postcards that document missionary work in Africa and Asia. The majority of these postcards have been made available by one vendor who has scoured flea markets and used books stores through Europe. The collection of more than 4,000 postcards complements other holdings in the Yale Divinity Library's Day Missions Collection. The Day Missions Collection makes up approximately one third of the Divinity Library's 500,000 volumes, and constitutes the bulk of its manuscript and archival collection. Since its foundation in 1892, the collection's scope has enlarged from a fairly narrow focus on training missionaries to become one of the preeminent collections documenting the thought, history, and practice of world Christianity.

Despite some earlier efforts, systematic campaigning against the slave trade is generally regarded as having started in the 1780s. The Quakers were the first to highlight the issues and it was they who were responsible for the first petition to Parliament in 1783. The Quakers set up a committee to obtain and publish information ‘as may tend to the abolition of the slave trade’, and this work was carried on by the more broadly based Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, established in 1787. With Thomas Clarkson travelling the country to gather information, this new group was able to attract the support of a considerably wider segment of the population and in 1788 over one hundred petitions were presented to Parliament.

Although the Jewish Community in South Africa has always been a small but nevertheless significant minority, it has featured prominently in the country's history. This paper sets out to highlight some of the most important events and developments in the community's local history, culturally, historically and politically. The various events and perspectives are mirrored through the vital documentation of the time, including the following premier examples: the struggle to obtain recognition for Yiddish as a language, the fight against anti-Semitism in the 1930s (the Grey Shirt movement and apartheid in more recent times), hurdles in regard to the immigration of Jews from Europe (especially refugees), the contribution of Jews to the development of the South African economy, commerce, law, literature and medicine.

The history of the Sudan has been the subject of greater inquiry than almost any other country of Sub-Saharan Africa. The scope and depth of the literature is overwhelming and cannot and should not be repeated here, for there are several excellent bibliographies which the general reader, student, or scholar can consult to investigate specific subjects. This bibliography was compiled by me during the writing of A Modern History of the Sudan (forthcoming) for the Cambridge University Press. Upon completion of the manuscript for the press, my editor and I realized that this bibliography of books concerning the history of the modern Sudan was much too long and detailed for a general history. I subsequently reduced the number of books listed here to only a third of those most pertinent to the text.