There is a free online resource that you should explore if you are interested in book culture, publishing, and book development in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a repository of important literature on these topics, created by Hans Zell in 2021. It is designed for researchers and educators in Africa who want to learn from the past. It has more than 1,200 records with full and critical annotations.
The repository focuses on recent studies (2000-2023) that are available online. It also includes some older studies and documents on the African book industries (1960-1999), especially those that are digital. Many of these are journal articles that can be accessed online, while others are books, collections, or conference proceedings that can be found in academic and university libraries.
The repository has been updated since its first edition in 2021. It now has 232 more records, mostly articles and other documents published in 2022 and 2023. The aim is to turn the repository into an online database about Publishing & Book Culture in Africa – a website that supports a virtual network of researchers and educators in Africa. It will also provide links to other databases of information about publishing in Africa.
The repository is not interactive yet, but you can search for literature by author, subject, or country using the Ctrl+F function (Find) in the document. For example, if you type “Nigeria” in the search box, you will see any text or records that have “Nigeria” in the titles or annotations of articles, reports, blog posts, and other documents. You can also use the same function to search for names of authors or people who are interviewed or profiled.
Hans Zell is a well-known author, editor, and publisher on African topics. He has been working in this field for over 50 years and has written a lot about publishing and the book sector in Africa. He started and edited The African Book Publishing Record, a quarterly journal of bibliographic and book trade information, from 1975 to 2002. He also worked as a Senior Consultant for African Books Collective Ltd from 1986 to 1995, and as a Secretary for the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa from 1979 to 1995.
You can access this amazing resource here!
