From the eighteenth century onwards a handful of the millions of Africans who had been caught in the transatlantic slave trade and transported to the Americas began to set down their experiences of enslavement, and of the African societies they had left behind. The writings of individuals such as James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Ignatius Sancho, Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano were among the first to attempt, to present the western world with a view of the African continent not coloured by racial prejudice or avarice. Thus it can be argued that the origin of the modern discipline of African Studies lies in the black Atlantic world. From that time on, products of the African diaspora from the Caribbean have played a key role in developing both a scholarly understanding and a politicised consciousness of the African continent and its peoples.

The academic library under review controls a sizable budget per annum out of which it acquires about 20,000 volumes per year arid serves more than 10,000 users. The Collection Development Policy provides for acquisition of single copies of foreign materials and five copies of materials from Botswana and from countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It does not provide textbooks since that is taken care of by the University of Botswana Bookshop. Since its establishment/the UBL has been sourcing the bulk of its materials through overseas booksellers, and with the declining value of the local pula currency/the number of books purchased has decreased: A number of reasons contribute to this state of affairs. As Paul Brickhill observes, ‘with the notable exception of particular bookshops, bookselling and particularly the special area of library supply is weak throughout Africa’.

The history of African Studies in Russia goes back to the 19th century. Traditionally two fields were most developed - Egyptology and Ethiopian Studies. Several Russian explorers travelled to East Africa and the Horn of Africa at the end of that century. After the 1917 revolution, more attention was paid to the anti-colonial struggle of the African peoples and the workers’ movement.

The first centres of African Studies were created in the early 1930s in Moscow as an African cabinet in the short-lived Scientific Research Association for the Study of National and Colonial Problems and die African Section of the so-called Communist University of the Toiling Peoples of the East. In 1945 the Department of African Languages was founded at the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) State University, followed by the African Section in the Institute of Ethnography and the African Department in the Institute for Oriental Studies.

Librarianship is a relatively new profession in Africa. It is certainly less than 100 years old. Most of the countries in Africa, having being colonised by the British and the French, imported librarianship into the continent wholesale from their colonial masters. For Anglophone Africans, their first contact with librarianship was when British officials set up libraries in the various colonies. To a large, extent, librarianship, can be said to be alien to the culture of Anglophone Africans. However, the role of a library in the development of a nation was quickly, recognised by the peoples of Anglophone Africa and libraries were warmly received when they were established.

As early as 1908, a medical library was established in the then Gold Coast, now Ghana, and a geology library was set up in Nigeria in 1919 (Akinyotu, 1972). According to Ogunsheye (1970) the Tom Jones library in Nigeria was founded between 1910 and 1920.