This article is based on a talk given to the SCOLMA annual general meeting in 1993 and is, very largely, a personal backward look at my involvement with people, places and African studies since the late 1950s.

When I first went to Africa in the fifties long distance travel was not the commonplace it is now. Uganda, where I took up my first overseas appointment as Librarian to the Department of Agriculture, was then a twenty-four hour flight away with stops at Rome, Benghazi and Khartoum. It is difficult to recapture first impressions on setting foot on African soil but there is a confused memory of heat, blazing sun (at 8 am), and the brilliant colours of the trees, flowers and the dresses of the Baganda women as well as mild cultural shock at finding that all the men wore shorts: I was not prepared for all those hairy knees.

It is just twenty years since SCOLMA's journals carried a two part survey (one in the last issue of Library materials on Africa, the second in the first issue of its successor, African research & documentation) of writings relating to African archives. Compiled by J.D. Pearson, the first part covered manuscripts and archives in African countries, while the second covered African related material located outside Africa. Pearson was encouraged to undertake his survey of the literature by the discussions at the Nairobi International Conference on African Bibliography of 1967, with its pioneering account of the archival literature prepared by Peter Duignan. As far as I am aware there has been no systematic attempt to cover this literature since, although there have been useful overviews such as David Easterbrook's survey in Africana journal in 1980.