In retrospect there was a certain inevitability that the Oxford Centre for Publishing Studies and Oxford Brookes University Library should establish a special collection on publishing in Africa, the first of its kind in Britain and perhaps anywhere in the northern hemisphere. There was the pre-existence in Oxford of powerful African publishing connections, represented on the one hand by two of the great houses which had helped to shape and develop and profit from publishing for and in Africa: Oxford University Press and Heinemann, and on the other by the parallel and equally important presence of specialist publishing operations and individuals with a focussed interest in publishing in the region: Bellagio and ABC, Hans Zell and Code Europe, James Currey Publishers and INASET.