Librarianship in Ethiopia: a bibliography

INTRODUCTION

When I started investigating into the Ethiopian librarianship, I discovered that there was no systematic way to search for the information sources on Ethiopian librarianship. It appeared that there is nothing on the topic except a few reports by Rita Pankhurst. However, later it was found that the information sources were scattered here and there and they were not cataloged or indexed. Subsequently, an intensive search was undertaken to identify and locate the sources on the topic. Searching them through library catalogs, I was surprised to find that how little material was accessible on this subject.

The bibliography was compiled from the various sources available in the vertical files available at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies Library of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and by searching and identifying relevant items in standard indexing and abstracting periodicals in library and information science, such as LISA, Library Literature. Many of the original sources, scattered here and there, were physically inspected. A good number of items were identified and included in the bibliography.

The bibliography is organized alphabetically by the last name of the author except for the Ethiopian authors whose names are used as they are written (Ethiopians do not have last name) and in all capital letters. For the several items of the same author, entries are arranged alphabetically by title. 

No comprehensive bibliography on Ethiopian bibliography was ever published before. This bibliography is intended to assist students and researchers who are interested in Ethiopian librarianship for background reading or original research. I hope that this easy-to-use exhaustive bibliography will be found as a useful source.

The  first public National Library in Ethiopia was opened in 1944, so all writings on Ethiopian Librarianship start from 1944.

1944-1960
1961-1970
1971-1980
1981-1990
1991-1995

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