All of us when we go to Africa acquire, sometimes systematically, more often haphazardly, mimeographed and printed documents which we store, often unused, hopefully to be used in the future. Scattered issues of journals, when added together, can make nearly complete collections.

With Portugal and Angola constantly in the news these days, we felt a survey of sources, archives, and movements concerned with the Portuguese in Africa would be valuable. Material for studies of Portuguese Africa is widely scattered (and admittedly fragmentary) and its location not well known. We have tried therefore to list very briefly the main institutes, libraries, and serial and book sources concerned with this subject and to furnish a guide to the political groups contesting for control of the Portuguese African Empire.

During the summer of 1962 I did research in the Archives Nationales du Cameroun at Yaoundé. Because I was studying certain aspects of French rule more than others, I never attempted to examine in detail all types of records found in the Archives. Consequently, though to my knowledge all the information I obtained about the Archives is correct, there is the possibility of omissions and errors.

Country-wide surveys of African newspapers are hard to find. One such survey is Report on the Press in West Africa. Valuable as it is, this mimeographed study may not have been circulated abroad; a summary of its sections on the press of Nigeria is therefore offered here, even though it may no longer be completely accurate.

The following list of government printers in Africa was compiled from the latest available information at the Library of Congress. In certain cases, where there is apparently no government printing office, the publishing or distributing body of the official gazette is listed. In many African countries, particularly the French-speaking states and territories, the official printer actually issues only a small percentage of government publications, most of which appear in mimeographed form and are distributed directly by the governmental agencies concerned.

The defeat of Germany in 1945 has made available to scholars archival collections of the greatest importance. Most of the captured collections were shipped to England or the United States, where they were microfilmed and indexed before the new German government could request their return. The sale of microfilm copies has assured their continued availability to scholars everywhere, and the Bonn authorities have made no efforts to withdraw the original materials from public use. Among these materials are the archives of the German Foreign Ministry (Auswärtiges Amt). A guide to this collection was prepared by the Committee for the Study of War Documents of the American Historical Association, and was published in 1959 as A Catalogue of Files and Microfilms of the German Foreign Ministry Archives, 1867-1920. (The Hoover Institution is publishing the continuation of this catalogue for the period 1920-45. Copies may be secured through the Institution.)

La défaite de l'Allemagne en 1945 a rendu disponible aux chercheurs des collections d'archives de la plus grande importance. La plupart des collections prises étaient envoyées en Angleterre ou aux Etats-Unis, où l'on les a microfilmées et indexées avant la demande par le nouveau gouvernement allemand de leur retour en Allemagne occidentale. La vente des copies microfilmées a assuré la disponibilité continue aux chercheurs. Les fonctionnaires de Bonn n'ont pas fait des démarches pour retirer les documents originaux à l'usage public. Parmi ces documents se trouvent les archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères allemand (Auswärtiges Amt). Un guide pour cette collection fut préparé par le Comité pour l'étude les documents de Guerre de l'Association historique américaine, et fut publié en 1959 sous le titre A Catalogue of Files and Microfilms of the German Foreign Ministry Archives, 1867-1920. (L'Institution Hoover est en train de publier la suite de ce répétoire pour la période 1920-1945. Des exemplaires peuvent être obtenus de l'Institution.)

Inventaire de la Série Mi des Archives de la République Malgache, by Jean Valette, Archivist (Imprimerie Nationale, Tananarive, 1963), 16 pp. reprinted from the Bulletin de Madagascar, No. 201 (February, 1963), pp. 163-176. Useful guide to the recently microfilmed collections deposited at the National Archives of Madagascar after an intensive search for foreign source materials conducted by the Archivist, Jean Valette. The inventory contains such items as photocopies from archives in Mauritius pertaining to Madagascar, 1767-1848; microfilms of the correspondence of General Gallieni, deposited at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; microfilms of documents on Madagascar preserved at the Bibliothèque Centrale des Archives du Ministère de la Marine de France; microfilms of documents relating to Madagascar before 1789 deposited at the Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangères de France as well as certain political correspondence for the period 1816-1885 from the same collection. In addition to these sources the guide lists manuscripts from the British Museum and the National Archives of the United States of America concerning Madagascar.

Lorsque nous allons en Afrique nous obtenons, quelquefois de façon systématique, plus souvent de façon fortuite, des documents ronéotypés ou imprimés que nous gardons, souvent sans les utiliser, pour I’avenir. Des numéros épars de journaux ou périodiques, quand on les rassemble, peuvent constituer des collections presque complètes.