What is presented here is not based on field research as would ideally have been the case but is based on personal observations supplemented with what is in the literature.
Discussion will be related to the basic role of library and information services for national development in recognition of the fact that these services are central to national development, particularly in the non-industrialised countries otherwise generally referred to as developing countries. This was the central theme of the 1984 IFLA Conference in Nairobi The paper discusses two aspects of a practice in library and information services, a practice that enhances the effectiveness of the services in question. In the context of this paper, cataloguing is described as the process through which sources of information in a collection are described in order to facilitate their recall.