Kwame Nkrumah, first president of the Republic of Ghana, and the scourge in his heyday, of what he termed “neo-colonialism”, is said to have had a painting displayed prominently in the main hall of his home. It is said to have depicted an outlined of a map of Africa in the midst of which an awakening black giant was shaking off his chains. Fleeing from the continent in terror were three pale Europeans: The first one grasped a suitcase, signifying the colonial administrator; the second in his white cassock, was, unmistakeably, the missionary; and the third was the anthropologist. This painting, needless to say, epitomized the feelings of most colonial peoples — at least those whose feelines could have any significant consequences — towards anthropologists and anthropology.

Conferences on aspects of African literature are no longer the rarity that they were ten years ago. They are fairly frequently held under the auspices of such bodies as the African Literature Association of America or in African universities. Nevertheless, there had been for some years a felt need — expressed at these annual gatherings among other places — for the kind of assessment conference that would possibly re-direct criticism and discussion of African writing in the next few years. If such a conference was to take place then it would need to get away from the issues which had become commonplace at ordinary gatherings of Africanists: ‘what is African literature’, ‘are European critical standards the appropriate ones for evaluating it’ and ‘should the African writer be concerned with the past or the present’, for example.

In the era of information explosion, published material is no longer the apanage of specialized journals. Researchers in all fields — and African literature is no exception — must gather data that are scattered in eclectic publications. For instance, three journals that do not specialize in literature recently published the following articles: Teisseyre, Ch. ‘Interrogation sur la littérature africaine d'expression francaise'. Revue Francaise d'Histoire du Livre 48 (1979): 805-811; Yaek'Olingo, Wufele. ‘Brefs regards sur l'image de l'autorité post-coloniale dans le roman africain de langue francaise’. Genève-Afrique 19 (1) (1981): 103-122; Menga, Guy. ‘Expérience d'un dramaturge: l'essor du théâtre moderne au Congo’. Ethnopsychologie 35 (2-3) (April-Sept. 1980): 81-86. In this study, several interdisciplinary indexes which cover journals pertaining to francophone African literature (including but not limited to, monographs, collective works, dissertations, and proceedings of conferences) are analyzed and compared in terms of their coverage, relevancy and currency.

In 1983 I was asked if I would like to assist the Librarian of Bishop Tucker College in Uganda in the classifying of his stock by the Dewey Decimal scheme. I was rather intrigued by the project. I had taught in Uganda in the late 60s and was keen to see the country again. The profound changes effected during the seventies stimulated me to consider research into the effect of such changes on a national information system.

Development of Libraries was mooted in various post-war development plans, and some were set up in the late 1940s and 1950s in district commissioners’ offices and community centres under the aegis of the East African Literature Bureau. A systematic national library development plan was formulated by Sidney Hockey in 1960 and in 1964 legislation created a Public Libraries Board to maintain a service.