Nigeria was the first country in Black Africa to have a current national bibliography. The responsibility for the production of the national bibliography, known as Nigerian Publications from 1953, when the first issue appeared, to 1973 when it changed its name to the National Bibliography of Nigeria, was transferred from the Ibadan University Library, Nigeria's largest research library, to the National Library of Nigeria in June 1970. Although the National Library was officially opened in 1964, it was not invested with this national bibliographic responsibility until 1970. The compilation of the national bibliography by the Ibadan University Library from 1953 to 1970 was a voluntary task not backed up by any national legislation, although the enactment of the Nigeria Publications Ordinance 1950, which required two copies of every book published in the country to be deposited with the Ibadan University College Library, as it was then known, enabled the Library to assume responsibility for the preparation of the national bibliography.

The National Archives of Zimbabwe came into being as a result of the passing of the Archives Act in April 1935 whose aim was: “To make provision for the preservation, custody, control and disposal of public records and judicial records of Southern Rhodesia and for matters incidental thereto.” In 1938 further legislation was passed which affected the activities of National Archives; this was the Printed Publications Act. In terms of this Act, the Archives receives a copy of every book, pamphlet, periodical, newspaper and sheet of letter press published in this country. Hence over the years a full-scale library has grown within National Archives.

In 1947 the services of the Archives were extended to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and legislation in each of those countries provided that the archives office of Rhodesia should also be the official archives office for each of them.

From time to time undergraduates at Edinburgh University taking a geography course in the Centre of African Studies are asked to prepare a bibliography and evaluation of maps on a particular topic for a country of their choice. The student's sequence of tasks is to select a country that has been mapped relatively well; compile a cartobibliography; locate copies of the maps; and finally, evaluate them. Such a process is also very familiar to map librarians, particularly in the course of acquisition and reference work.

In attempting to ascertain what mapping is available and to evaluate it, two approaches might be adopted. The student could turn to a guide to or bibliography of Africana in the hope that this would lead directly to sources of information on cartographic publishing. Alternatively, cartographic sources could be approached first. Certainly the first approach yields some useful sources but has its limitations.