African studies has increasingly gained recognition as an area of study on both sides of the Atlantic. For us in the Caribbean it is of particular significance since Africa is the ancestral home of the majority of the population in most of the territories which comprise the English-speaking Caribbean. Among the legacies of colonialism was an education system based on the English curriculum which resulted either in the absence of or a biased representation of Africa in schools. There have been, however, particularly in Jamaica initially, distinct elements in the society for whom Africa had an even greater significance. The movement associated with Marcus Garvey and also the Rastafari cult are both groups which believed that Africa was home and whose members looked forward to the day when they might return there.

What is presented here is not based on field research as would ideally have been the case but is based on personal observations supplemented with what is in the literature.

Discussion will be related to the basic role of library and information services for national development in recognition of the fact that these services are central to national development, particularly in the non-industrialised countries otherwise generally referred to as developing countries. This was the central theme of the 1984 IFLA Conference in Nairobi The paper discusses two aspects of a practice in library and information services, a practice that enhances the effectiveness of the services in question. In the context of this paper, cataloguing is described as the process through which sources of information in a collection are described in order to facilitate their recall.

In an earlier issue of this journal (ARD 36,1984) I described the archival training workshops held in Zanzibar in the summer of 1984. The workshops were not intended to overcome fully the problems of the Zanzibar Archives but to set in motion work which could be evaluated and more fully developed the following year. The second programme, described below, was held in July and August 1985.

A brief review of the background to the workshops may be helpful. Zanzibar possesses the only extensive 19th century English language archive in East and Central Africa, a British representative having been posted there earlier than anywhere else in the region.

As the largest specialist in African studies in the United Kingdom, SOAS holds a place at the centre of academic research in the humanities and social sciences relating to Africa. In view of the sheer extent of research undertaken at the School, an article such as this must therefore confine itself to the briefest of reviews.

While the School is ordered academically by discipline, its very strong area orientation is reflected in, for example, the Centre for African Studies and the Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa. These provide a focus for African research undertaken by staff of the School and for courses in African studies, at undergraduate and post-graduate levels, offered by the School.