The gradual opening of the Chamare Museum at Mua Mission over a period of many weeks during the mid-summer of 1997 most naturally reflected its prolonged periods of conception and gestation, exceeding thirty years and more in total. For such represents the period of time that the guiding light and moving spirit behind this truly epic work of ethnological scholarship, Claude Boucher, has been acquiring his deep knowledge, love and understanding of the complex, ritual-imbued lives of the surrounding Chewa, Ngoni and Yao peoples of central Malawi. As the culmination of this extended process of intelligent observation and detailed record, the Chamare Museum offers much that is surely unique in interpretation, organisation and presentation anywhere in Africa. Certainly Malawi has never seen the like, and no visit to Malawi can now be considered satisfactory or complete without the inclusion of the Mua Mission.

Various governments of Ghana have, at least on paper, shown recognition of the need for a national library, which will undertake as one of its principal responsibilities the preparation of the national bibliography. In January 1963, for example, the Ministry of Education set up a Technical Advisory Committee to advise on the need for a national library. The Committee had several sittings and it did succeed in submitting proposals to obtain some financial support if not for the building of a national library then, at least, for developing some of its functions, including the publication of retrospective and current national bibliographies.

Earlier in 1961, the George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs (GPRLAA) had been established by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, former President of Ghana, in memory of his friend, the late George Padmore, with the objective of providing a centre for the study of African affairs in Ghana.

In my Africa: a guide to reference material (London, Hans Zell, 1993), works relating to the biological sciences were deliberately excluded. In order to fill a part of this gap, I am hoping to produce a series of lists of major reference sources relating to African flora and fauna. The first listing is concerned with sources relating to the ornithology of Africa.

In the ornithological context, ‘reference material’ has been deemed to comprise the following major categories:

taxonomic checklists which attempt to establish complete listings of scientific and popular names for all species known to have occurred within a particular region (zoogeographical, regional, national, a particular game park, etc.). These need to be updated regularly both as knowledge of bird distribution increases, and as taxonomists make new decisions regarding bird relationships, with consequent changes in scientific names. Local decisions in the latter area naturally reflect world decisions, and so some of the standard world lists are also cited. Standard lists of popular names in English, other European languages and African languages are also required.