Background

For a long time Africa was the centre stage for communication activities. Hieroglyphics, clay tablets, paintings on cave walls and drum messages were a few methods known to, and used by, the African inhabitants to convey messages over great distances. Then came Gutenberg, the invention of the printing press and printing, and eventually the birth of e-books – the rise of the First World and the fall of the Third World?

Libraries in Africa

African culture was, and still is, communicated orally and a large number of Africans are still influenced by oral tradition. Africa also has little to no reading culture. It was even reported that African academics did not show much interest in material published in Africa, and in some instances did not even bother to visit the library. For example, Kenyan University Library reported that 50% of its academics never enter the library (Rosenberg, 1997).

Most libraries in Africa were established as post World War 2 institutions. At the time of their establishment, university libraries in Africa were the bestequipped libraries on the African continent. The economic situation of libraries led to a considerable deterioration of services offered, and forced libraries to rely on donor funding from Book Aid International and the World Bank Book Project to build and sustain their individual library collections. It is still a concern that the collections of Africa's academic institutions did not really grow as they should have, owing to the small budgets that the libraries received from their parent institutions, ranging from 3 to 8% of the total university budgets (Alemna, 1994, 15–17). From 1995 onwards library growth showed a sharp decline or became nonexistent in a number of African countries. It became evident that library budgets were mainly spent on salaries and not on stock (Rosenberg, 1997).

African libraries face a variety of other difficulties. For example, the University of Sierra Leone reported that its library's roof was leaking and that there were no electrical lights available for studying. Sierra Leone and University of Kenyatta reported that they managed to acquire generators to generate electricity to bind and to run the computers. Also in Sierra Leone, the library needs to close at 1700 hours daily, because of the political instability.