It is a daunting prospect to attempt to follow those eminent Africanists who have been Presidents of this Association since its inception in 1962. Apart from such figures as Dame Margery Perham from the humanities, I find myself this evening occupying that chair so felicitously graced by natural scientists of the calibre of Sir Joseph Hutchinson, Ronald Keay and Walter Russell, whose achievements I cannot hope to emulate. You may be aware that until three years ago the President was only required to deliver an Address to the Association if his year of office included the biennial Conference. Consequently such scholars as John Fage and Robert Steel escaped the noose. My only consolation - if such it be - is that, having been largely responsible for the change in the rules which now, inevitably and inexorably, require the President to deliver an address, my present plight would still be unavoidable had the rules not been changed.

This project proposal for establishing an African Integrated Network of Administrative Information - AINAI, is aimed at solving the problems of information and its utilization in the African administrative environment. It is a decentralized, co-ordinated and voluntary African administrative and managerial information system aimed at guiding, interpreting and stimulating action leading to increased co-operation and co-ordination among libraries and information services of the African institutions of public administration and management on the national and regional level. The AINAI system will provide accelerated diffusion and popularization of reliable administrative information, a steady increase in co-operative sharing without constraint of time, distance and form of data.