This region comprises the more than fifty African states that are unified, if at all, by an enduring legacy of colonialism or foreign occu- pation. African countries vary in size from the enormous expanses of Sudan and the Demo- cratic Republic of the Congo to small island states in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In population they vary from Nigeria’s more than 100 million and Egypt’s nearly 70 million, to just a few thousand. Most are extremely poor, with average annual incomes in countries like Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone being amongst the very lowest in the world. Despite notable exceptions, their populations tend to be thinly spread throughout the rural areas. The majority of people are dependent on subsistence agricul- ture, and are highly vulnerable to the famines and natural disasters that occur with frequency in the tropical climates of the region. There is an enormous diversity of languages and cultural traditions within many of the countries them- selves, as well as in the continent as a whole.
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Although sectors of some countries, most nota- bly South Africa, are highly developed, in general the information infrastructures and li- brary and information institutions of the region reflect low levels of national development. Mod- ern library and information work is still a pioneer activity in most of the region, despite the fact that the countries of the Mediterranean fringe have a documentary tradition going back for thousands of years.
History
It is important to be aware that written records have a much longer history in Africa than in Europe. Clay tablets have been found in parts of Egypt dating back to before 3000 bc. The various different ages of Egyptian civilization produced a wealth of documentation and the Maghreb as a whole can also show riches that include Berber inscriptions, Greek and Roman books, Vandal wooden tablets from the fifth and sixth centuries, and great quantities of Arabic literature after the Muslim conquests and conver- sions of the seventh century. Whether or not ancient Egypt had many libraries, as opposed to archives and ceremonial collections, the Ptole- maic period certainly produced one of the world’s most famous libraries: that of Alexan- dria. There were Roman libraries scattered through the Mediterranean provinces, and the Arabic and Ottoman periods had a comparative abundance of libraries created for mosques, universities and palaces.
The story of modern libraries is the story of the effects of colonization, which were suffered by every African country (except Ethiopia, if we ignore the brief Italian occupation of the 1930s).
Control of the continent fluctuated between many European powers until the first half of the twentieth century when, for a while, Britain, France and Portugal were the main external forces. In the Maghreb, French, Spanish and Italian linguistic influence did not supplant a powerful Arabic written culture, and Egypt, which fell in the British sphere of influence, remained an important centre for Middle East- ern, Islamic and secular Arabic culture, with comparatively large and significant libraries. In sub-Saharan Africa, settlers and Christian mis- sionaries were chiefly responsible for giving orthographies to African languages so that the Bible and other religious writings could be made
widely accessible. This did not mean that sub- Saharan Africa had sufficient books in African languages to form libraries. The first libraries in the region seem to have been on its geographical fringes: in the Sahara itself, with mosque libraries in cities like Timbuktu and Djenne in the sixteenth century; along the east coast in trading communities like Mombasa, Zanzibar or Kilwa;
and in South Africa, where in 1761 a small public library was set up by European settlers.
In fact, during the colonial period, which ended for most African countries in the 1960s, administrations paid little attention to library and information services for the general popula- tion. Libraries (often for the exclusive use of white people) were sometimes set up where there were large numbers of settlers, as in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Algeria. It was not, however, until preparations were being made for the independence of some of the British colonies that much attention was given to more accessible information and library facilities. In Ghana, for instance, the Ghana Library Board was established in 1950, seven years before independence. Several former British colonies, such as Tanzania in 1963, also passed legislation to set up and support library services very early in their independent existence. In francophone Africa, the pattern of library provision in the colonial period was usually more tentative, though Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria show an Arabic tradition overlain by French colonial influences. Some of the most positive initiatives in francophone Africa were in the former Belgian colonies, but independence does not seem to have brought quite the same enthusiasm or opportunities as in English-speaking Africa.
Likewise, the Portuguese colonies could only show a few old-established libraries like the Biblioteca Municipal de Luanda (1873) and a network of early twentieth-century research libraries.
The information environment
Indigenous African culture was, and is, richly oral, with history, religion, medicine, geography and works of the imagination, nowadays often referred to together as indigenous knowledge (IK), held in the human mind. Africa’s oral society should most definitely not be treated as if it were a problem for those wishing to create effective information institutions. It does, how- 10 AFRICA
ever, raise a set of questions that have not needed to be answered in countries, such as those of Europe and North America, where large propor- tions of the population were both literate and print-oriented before libraries were widely avail- able. One issue is that of how governments and their agencies communicate with citizens. News- papers, despite low literacy levels, are a popular source of information, but they are often govern- ment-controlled or censored, and their economic base is frequently precarious. Newsprint is cripp- lingly expensive, advertising revenue is limited and unreliable, and distribution networks seldom stretch much beyond the cities, even if sufficient copies could be printed to sell more widely.
Radio is more or less ubiquitous, but receivers and batteries are expensive in relation to people’s incomes and it is unrealistic to claim that access to radio is truly universal. What is more, use of radio by governments as an information medium is not merely unidirectional (top down) but usually clumsy and ineffective. Not every country has a television service, and, where there is one, the signal often does not reach far beyond the main centres of population. Ownership of recei- vers is also very low, with just a few thousand sets in many countries. Local programme content is rare and not of a high standard, so much of what is broadcast is the cheaper product of the US broadcasting export trade. Satellite transmis- sion is in the process of transforming the scope of television reception, but at present this, too, has a comparatively limited audience in Africa.
Problems of information service in Africa In practice, most formal information services suffer from crippling problems, and few realize their full potential. Budgetary constraints affect libraries, public broadcasting, extension ser- vices, other information agencies and infrastruc- tural services in virtually every African country.
The availability of printed material of all kinds is severely limited because of shortages of paper, limited printing capacity and underdeveloped distribution channels. National publishing indus- tries that produce fewer than one hundred titles per year are the norm. Although Egypt produces about 10,000 titles, in sub-Saharan Africa, apart from South Africa with about 2,500 titles, only Nigeria reaches a figure of 1,000 titles per year.
censorship is often one of the most efficient activities of government, and the suppression of
unacceptable opinion or information is fre- quently brutal. Imported publications are expen- sive in local terms, and foreign currency to purchase them is severely rationed in most countries. Import dues and customs restrictions also contribute to the expense. Locally produced grey literature is a resource of more than usual value when conventional publishing is so weak, but is often even more difficult to acquire in some African countries than it is in other parts of the world because of practices such as officials retaining copies in the hope of personal profit.
Postal services, both internal and external, tend to be slow and unreliable. Likewise, internal telephone communications are often very ineffi- cient, although satellite links to other countries are usually highly effective. Levels of access to telephones have been extremely low, with seldom more than an average of one telephone line per hundred inhabitants and more commonly one per each thousand people. The deregulation of tele- communications in many African countries and the licensing of new cellular networks is, how- ever, transforming the situation. The number of mobile subscribers is expected to exceed those with fixed connections during 2002 and better telecommunications access opens the way for better online access. Computers, whilst almost ubiquitous in banks, businesses and government offices, are relatively expensive to buy in the first place, and to maintain and to run subsequently.
Whilst the endemically unreliable electrical sup- ply of most African countries may no longer provide quite the same threat to computer files as it used to, it does make effective use of compu- ters somewhat difficult. Despite this, the number of home computers and of computer literate people is rising at a swift rate. There now seem to be genuine indications that some sectors of African society are entering the information age, but this also serves to increase the divide between information haves and have-nots
Library and archive services
SPECIAL LIBRARIES
The first sector in which consistent, positive library developments can be observed across the continent is that of special libraries and documentation centres. Geological libraries, be- ginning with that at Khartoum, Sudan, in 1904, and agricultural libraries, such as the Forestry Department Library and Herbarium, Entebbe, AFRICA 11
Uganda, also in 1904, were often the earliest to be founded. In 1910 administrative libraries were required by law in the former Belgian Congo, and the number of special libraries of various types across the continent increased steadily, although not swiftly, thereafter. Today special libraries and documentation centres continue to be important and comparatively flourishing in- stitutions. Many form part of government minis- tries, parastatals and NGOs, and are thus able to appeal for support very directly to the decision- makers. They serve small but influential clien- teles, whose activities can be seen as affecting the economic prospects of the country. Although the libraries need expensive imported monographs and journals, their most significant stock is probably grey literature, which is difficult, but not expensive, to acquire. They often have useful links with overseas institutions that may supply materials as gifts or exchanges. Special libraries increasingly exploit online access and the re- sources of the World Wide Web, and this tends to raise the profile of information work within the institution.
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
The academic library (see academic libraries) has a long pedigree in Africa and some of the world’s oldest universities are found there. Al- Azhar University, Cairo, was founded in 970 and Quarouine University in Fez, Morocco, in 1400.
However, in sub-Saharan Africa few academic libraries, such as those at Fourah Boy College, Sierra Leone (1827), and Liberia College, Mon- rovia, Liberia (1862), date from as long ago as the nineteenth century. Most African universities and their libraries were founded in the period since the Second World War. African countries have invested extremely high proportions of their public revenue on education and this has in- cluded at least one university in almost every state. Many of these have sizeable and sometimes architecturally impressive library buildings, which express the vision of the founders of the important role that the library would play in the university. The sad reality is that the expense of developing and maintaining collections to sup- port teaching and research has proved beyond the resources found in most African countries.
Up-to-date, well-selected and well-cared-for col- lections are the exception rather than the rule, so that researchers and teachers lack the essentials for progressive scholarship, and students are
often forced to rely exclusively on their own lecture notes. school libraries frequently suf- fer even greater degrees of deprivation, some existing in name only. The possibility that elec- tronic information services may open up a new form of access for the staff and students of educational establishments, replacing conven- tional library service almost entirely, seems like one of the most hopeful possibilities in many cases.
NATIONAL AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES
These two forms of library are deliberately linked, since the arrangements in many African countries are different from those in other parts of the world. National library (see national libraries) services are not usually a national research collection rooted in legal deposit acqui- sitions, as would be expected elsewhere, though such libraries do exist. For instance, the former Khedive’s Library of 1870, in Cairo, which is now the national library of Egypt, has a great wealth of Arabic books and manuscripts as- sembled from various neglected earlier collec- tions. There are also more recent stirrings. A fine modern national library building was opened in Windhoek, Namibia, in 2001, and in 2002 the Ugandan government drafted a law instituting a national library. However, by far the most significant national library development, and probably the most significant library project in twenty-first century Africa, is the new library of Alexandria. Work towards this joint project of the Egyptian government andunesco began in 1995 and its official inauguration was in April 2002. It is to be both a modern national library and a centre for Egyptian and regional studies.
Much more commonly, national libraries take the form of a national public library service, with a central headquarters co-ordinating branches in various parts of the country. Some services do have legal deposit collections, but in other cases the depository centre might be the national archives, the national university or a separate bibliographical agency. The national biblio- graphy, where it exists, may emanate from any of these institutions. Perhaps of all the types of library to be found in Africa, national/public libraries have had the hardest struggle to adapt to need. The European or North American model of the public library (see public libraries) is posited, first and foremost, on the existence of a large well-schooled population of adult readers.
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Whereas in Africa, where such a group hardly existed until recently, the public library tends to be marginalized. It is seen to best advantage in communities, like the high-density suburbs (townships) of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where the number of readers is high and the stock reason- ably well adapted to their needs. Simple observa- tion shows that the demand for public libraries is strongest amongst children of school age, but very few libraries recognize this by gearing their collections and services, at least for the medium term, to this manifest need.
ARCHIVE SERVICES
Although one or two countries, notably Maur- itius, had archive services during the nineteenth century, the main period of development prob- ably began with the setting up of services in French colonies: Senegal and Niger in 1913, and Benin in 1914. The Portuguese possessions were also quite advanced: a National Historical and Research Centre was founded in Angola in 1933, and the Historical Archives of Mozambique in 1934. The first major service in a British colony was founded in the then Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1935. This particular service has since been something of a leader, as the Central African Archives for the Rhodesias and Nyasaland (after 1946), and now as the National Archives of Zimbabwe. Archives in Africa have tended to be quite outward-looking information institutions, rather than stressing their purely historical func- tion. Whilst libraries have struggled because of, among other things, lack of material to provide for users, archives have naturally been the recipients of a constant flow of documentation from their parent bodies. Several of them, such as the National Archives of Zambia and of Zim- babwe, have also been designated for the receipt of legal deposit copies of published materials.
Recognizing the value of much of what they hold for immediate practical purposes, services like those of Kenya and Zimbabwe have promoted use of their collections by planners and business- men, as well as researchers and academics, to good effect.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY AND EDUCATION FOR INFORMATION AND LIBRARY WORK
More than half of the African states now have some form of library and information associa- tion. At first, such organizations were regional, with the West African Library Association,
founded in 1954, the pioneer. The member countries dissolved this is 1962, and single- country associations are the norm, although some countries, like Nigeria and South Africa (because of its apartheid legacy), have more than one. The membership of most associations may be small, but they do succeed in carrying out a range of professional activities despite their difficulties. Journals such as the Botswana Li- brary Association Journal and Maktaba from Kenya are important sources of professional development information, as are the meetings, seminars and conferences that the associations organize. An outstanding example of the latter is the biennial meeting of the Standing Conference of East, Central and Southern African Librarians (SCECSAL), which since the early 1970s has provided marvellous opportunities for the ex- change of professional information and opinion to library personnel from the English-speaking eastern half of the continent. African librarians also provide a growing input to the activities of international organizations such as the Interna- tional Federation of Library Associations (ifla), at conferences, on committees and through pro- grammes such as IFLA’s ALP (Advancement of Librarianship in the Third World). This comple- ments the activities of development organizations with African programmes, such as Germany’s Deutsche Stiftung fu¨r Internationale Entwicklung (DSE), or Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which have organized many valuable programmes and publications.
African librarians, particularly those of Nigeria, are now prolific writers on professional topics and their articles will be found throughout the literature.
All this has been achieved in a comparatively short time, whilst coping with difficulties of the kind outlined above. Much is owed to the progress in library education that has been achieved during this time. The University of Ibadan began the first African programme, at non-professional level, in 1950, followed by a programme at professional level in 1960, but before then, and since, great numbers of African librarians have studied in Britain, France, the USA, Russia and elsewhere. These graduates of foreign institutions have provided staff for a whole series of schools subsequently established across the continent. Some had a regional func- tion, like the school set up at Dakar in Senegal in 1962 for francophone Africa, the school set up in AFRICA 13