This paper attempts to discuss the concept of national libraries and the state-of-the-art in Africa. The role of national libraries and the challenges facing them are also analysed. It has been found out for example, that a majority of national libraries in Africa are found in the French-speaking countries. Other libraries such as public and university libraries are performing this role in the English-speaking countries. It is argued that although there is no alternative to a national library, African countries should make adaptations to suit their circumstances.

Citing Ayi Kwei Armah, Kotei has this to say about the plight of indigenous publishing in Africa: “if you [the writer] set out to print anything on your own, the printing costs will stagger you. If you manage to print, the distribution difficulties will blow your mind. If you give your stuff to a local publisher, you will sympathize so much with his problems so that you may not write again…So all our work… appears first to an audience which either regards us like some glass-enclosed specimen…or like an exotic weed to be sampled and made a conversation piece…or else we become some international organization's pet”.

This article assesses the development of the indigenous publishing industry in Sub-Saharan Africa - the economics of publishing in relation to production, marketing and distribution of locally published materials, indigenization, current trends in publishing and the book trade in general, and the roles played by the different bodies concerned.

Rhodes House Library has recently acquired a typescript of the journal of “Matabele Jim” Archer Burton (1850-1922) who went out to southern Africa in 1894 to trade with the Matabele and the Mashona and to prospect for gold. There he became involved with Cecil Rhodes’ Chartered Company, and during the rebellion in Mashonaland in 1896 he took part in the Mazoe Valley action, being shot through the face at close range, a wound he was lucky to survive and which left his face disfigured for the rest of his life. He was evacuated to England for hospital treatment, but returned to Rhodesia in 1898, finally leaving the country for the last time in 1901. The original journal, illustrated with pen and ink sketches of great clarity, remains in the possession of Archer Burton's son, but is also destined for eventual deposit at Rhodes House.

For a general introduction to this working bibliography and an account of criteria for inclusion see Part 1 in ARD 62. This section contains a number of items relating to the various West African workshops organized by the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers (ACARM), of which copies are available in the library of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London where the Association has its Secretariat. Although in general in this series of bibliographies entries have not been made for “in-house” finding aids produced by archives, an exception is made here for the extensive series produced by the National Archives of Nigeria. This is because these cyclostyled lists were fairly widely circulated, and certainly many of those produced in the 1960s are available in libraries outside the country (in the U.K. for example in the Institutes of Commonwealth Studies and Historical Research and SOAS at the University of London).