While there are common issues relating to publishing in all countries, there are a variety of special problems that affect Third World nations — among them African nations — in ways which differ from industrialised nations. Questions such as copyright, book distribution, and production problems are international in relevance but have a special meaning in the context of the Third World.

Publishing is one part of a range of book-related activities. While the problems of book publishers constitute the main focus of our discussion, a range of related issues from the role of authors to the impact of colonial-inherited systems of education — all these will from time to time enter into our discussion. As Albach and Rathgeber say, this is because publishing is a system of knowledge dissemination that is increasingly interdependent on other elements of the communications process.

Last year I visited the Kenya National Archives (KNA) as a consultant for UNESCO to review its functions, organisation, staffing and relations with other institutions working in related fields. I did not examine the contents of the archives in detail, although I was able to get a general idea of its holdings. My brief was to assess how it was working now rather than, from an evaluation of its contents, how effectively or otherwise it had operated in the past. Nevertheless it became clear that whatever was happening in 1982, much that ought to have been done earlier had not been done, with consequent gaps in the records.

Since 1980 the KNA has been housed in what is by any standards an impressive building. It is sited on the intersection of Moi Avenue and Tom Mboya Street, between the tourist, commercial and main shopping areas of Nairobi, near the main bus station and on the other side of a pleasant square from the multi-storey Union Hotel.