Nigerian societies treat many aspects of their cultures with reverence. Names and naming are just two of these. It is for this reason that Nigerian names deserve more than just a passing interest by cataloguers. Although long contact with the West has resulted in the adoption of family names, the issue of surnames, as a whole, is more complex. It is not in all Nigerian societies that surnames fit into the standard definition. For accurate identification and choice of names as access points, the cataloguer needs to have a deeper knowledge of the peculiarities that exist in various cultures. Cataloguing rules have made provision for a similar peculiarity in Asiatic names. It would be over simplistic to assume that Nigeria, or Africa for that matter, fits snugly into the Western mode.

The electronic library revolution is not the hurricane some feared it would be. It might have changed the face of the landscape, but some edifices with very strong foundations have survived and are still standing. One of such survivors is cataloguing - at least many aspects of it. Information Technology has changed traditional library chores; we cannot as yet burn our codebooks. I have yet to come across a library software that has completely done away with access points. I would rather think that digitization has actually created more of them. Even if some have been de-emphasised, the good old name entry appears still to stand on solid ground.