Despite the publication of several excellent guides to colonial materials and Africana collections held in Western libraries, locating suitable archival sources for Cameroonian colonial history remains a challenge. While some documentation continues to reside in Cameroon itself, the bulk of material from the colonial period can be found in a series of Western libraries and archives scattered across Europe and the United States. The following introductory guide, based on my own research and correspondence with the institutions in question, is intended to help other researchers locate archival materials of interest to their work.

Shortly after the German Colonial Society was disbanded the University of Frankfurt acquired its extensive library of colonial materials and integrated them into its own collection. Consequently, Frankfurt is by far the best source for locating published materials on the German colonial empire.

The dawn of the 21st century is synonymous with an explosion of information unmatched by any other era in history. Traditionally, librarians have been the gatekeepers of knowledge and culture; in a sense they are secondary providers of information, if publishers are to be regarded as primary providers. Librarians in the West have gradually moved from being simply “keepers of information” to become “managers of information”. They are increasingly dealing with user needs, not wants, and this requires knowledge of information development: where it is located and how to access it. According to Lynch (1994): ”… the concept ‘library’, difficult enough to define in the traditional sense has become almost impossible to define today”. The difference is one of degree, not an absolute, but it is enough of a difference to provide a necessary point for discussion.