The following highly selective list was compiled for presentation at the October 1964 meeting of the African Studies Association's Libraries-Archives Committee in Chicago. It was designed to illustrate preliminary findings of the ASA's National African Guide Project in the area of private (i.e., nongovernmental) papers, and particularly to emphasize their wide variety and distribution. The entries, by individuals and organizations, are grouped under the following broad “activity” categories: Politicians; Diplomats; Naval Officers; Humanitarians; Missionaries; Businessmen and Businesses; Authors, Journalists, and Travelers; and Scholars and Scientists. In several cases there is a further breakdown into subcategories. Within their respective categories or subcategories the entries are arranged alphabetically. An effort has been made throughout this list to complement--rather than duplicate--the coverage of the Collins and Duignan guide, Americans in Africa (Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution, 1963).

The American Geographical Society, Broadway at 156th Street, New York, N. Y. 10032, has an African collection of approximately 5,000 volumes, with emphasis on exploration, travel, description, history, and geography, and an estimated 137 linear feet of shelf space of government documents and 100 feet of shelf space for periodicals. The Society holds sets of maps for most African countries as well as numerous single maps for individual countries. The maps date from 1500 to the present time. Subjects covered include geology, soils, population, ethnography, economics, history, and transportation. The approximate number of single maps is 7,000. In addition, the Society has approximately 70 atlases, and a unique catalogue of maps published in periodicals and books is maintained.

Area studies at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., embrace Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe. There is also interest in Near Eastern, Indie, and Commonwealth studies. Each area has a curator or adviser to the Library who ensures that all important publications issued in or about his area are secured.

Although the Council on African Studies at Yale goes back only to 1957, interest in Africa extends much further into the past. Individual members of the faculty have pursued Africanist researches from the beginnings of such studies. African history and the African collections in the Yale Library owe much to Professor Harry Rudin. Professor G. P. Murdock and associates founded the Cross Cultural Survey at Yale, out of which grew the Human Relations Area Files. (The complete files of both are housed in the Sterling Memorial Library.)

During the past few years, there have been many changes in orientation and in nomenclature among former Belgian “colonial” institutions. The tendency has been to extend an interest in the Congo and in Central Africa more generally to the entire “Third,” or developing, World. This tendency is reflected both in the assistance activities of public and private bodies and in the organization of research and documentation.

The checklist that follows attempts to describe the present situation in the field, though it is by no means exhaustive. The material is based on a short trip to Brussels by the compiler, extensive correspondence, and the helpful cooperation of the various institutions. Any errors are the responsibility of the compiler alone.

Information for the entries is arranged as follows (any nonrelevant categories are dropped out):

Name of institution (former name), address.

Person responsible for documentation.

(a) Size of collection on African subjects.

(b) Special subject fields.

(c) Bibliographical publications.

(d) Periodicals and serials; other publications of interest.

(e) Projects in process or planned.

(f) Further information of interest to Africanists.

This bibliography is a revision of a mimeographed copy which I compiled several years ago and which has been circulated privately on request. Continued interest has now prompted me to revise and publish it here. It deals mainly with the Pastoral or “Rift Valley” Masai of both Kenya and Tanzania. But it also includes many important references to other Maa-speaking peoples--such as the Samburu and Njemps (Tiamus) of Kenya and the Arusha and Baraguyu of Tanzania--who are referred to variously in the early literature as the Wakwavi, Wahumba, or Iloikop or simply as the Agricultural Masai.

Although by no means exhaustive, the bibliography is designed to include all the major works dealing with the history, language, and traditional social, political, and economic life of the Pastoral Masai. Other important items, not included here, may be found in the following:

(1) Colonial Office Files, Public Record Office, London; (2) Secretariat Archives, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Dar es Salaam; and (3) Regional and Area Administrative Office Files, Kenya and Tanzania.

Although the quantity of children's literature about Africa has been increasing rapidly in recent years--probably more has been published since 1960 than in the preceding three decades--the total volume is small and mediocre. Children's literature in this discussion refers to books written especially for children up to twelve or thirteen years of age. Somewhat over half the books which have been written for this age group are geographies, animal stories, and factual compendia with titles like First Book of Liberia, Getting to Know Tanganyika, Land and People of South Africa, and so on. Young persons are likely to use such books in connection with school assignments or purely for pleasure (in the case of animal stories), but they will gain little understanding of African peoples and cultures from them.

The smaller segment of children's books about Africa is comprised of storybooks and factual presentations of African history and contemporary African life. Some of these books are sufficiently attractive to catch the attention of library users and of children whose parents are affluent enough to buy books for them. But do these books help create an understanding of the peoples and cultures of Africa? This question is especially pertinent since school curricula still devote relatively little attention to Africa, despite its increased importance on the world scene, and television, radio, movies, and other mass media to which children have access often do little or nothing to promote an understanding of Africa and its people.

African studies in Canada are still relatively in their early stages, but university interest in the African continent is being developed by three types of approach: by the Comnnittee on International Studies of the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges (an organization of university administrations), by the Committee on African Studies in Canada (an association of scholars and students, assisted by the Humanities Research and Social Science Research Councils of Canada), and by the efforts of individual universities across the dominion.

The earliest coordinated effort was that of the Committee on African Studies in Canada, which was formed by some ten scholars from seven universities, meeting informally in Montreal in December 1962. A semiannual Bulletin, appearing simultaneously in French and English, business and academic meetings in June of each year, and affiliation, with assistance, to the research councils, were agreed upon. Dr. Ronald Cohen, then at McGill University, and Dr. Donald C. Savage of Loyola College were elected chairman and secretary-treasurer respectively. In 1963, Dr. Donald L. Wiedner, then of the University of Alberta at Edmonton, succeeded to the chair for two years and, with the help of that university and the councils, edited the Bulletin throughout that time. In 1964, Professeur Bernard Charles (Université de Montréal), M. Louis Bérubé (Collège Sainte-Marie), and Dr. E. Palmer Patterson (University of Waterloo) were added as vice-chairman, secretary, and treasurer respectively.