Publishing &amp; the Book in Africa: A Literature Review for 2017
Authors: Zell Hans 
Published: October 2019

This is the third in a series of annual reviews of select new literature in English that hasappeared on the topic of publishing and the book sector in sub-Saharan Africa.The previous annual literature reviews can be found as follows:2016:https://www.academia.edu/31441110/Publishing_and_the_Book_in_Africa_A_Literature_Review_for_2016 (pre-print version)Print/online version published in The African Book Publishing Record 43, no. 2 (May 2017): 120-170. https://doi.org/10.1515/abpr-2017-00042015:https://www.academia.edu/20432811/Publishing_and_the_Book_in_Africa_-_A_Literature_Review_for_2015 (pre-print version)Print/online version published in The African Book Publishing Record 42, no. 1 (March 2016):11-37. https://doi.org/10.1515/abpr-2016-0003.Extensively annotated and/or with abstracts, the present list brings together new literaturepublished during the course of 2017, a total of 157 records. Also included are a small numberof articles and other documents published in 2016 or earlier, and which have not hithertobeen included in previous annual literature reviews or in the Publishing, Books &amp; Reading inSub-Saharan Africa online database (see also below). The literature review covers books,chapters in books and edited collections, journal articles, Internet documents and reports,theses and dissertations, interviews, audio/video recordings and podcasts, as well as anumber of blog postings, with their posting dates indicated. Newspaper articles and storiesare not generally included, unless of substantial length or of special significance.Records are grouped under a range of regional/country and topic-specific headings. It should be noted that, for the most part, literature on particular topics, e.g. children’s book publishing, digital publishing, educational and schoolbook publishing, publishing in African languages, reading culture and reading promotion, scholarly publishing, etc. is listed under topic/subject rather than country headings. For example, an article on developments in the digital book sector in Kenya will be listed in the topics sub-section entitled ‘Digital media and electronic publishing’ rather than in the country section for ‘Kenya’. However, in the absence of a country index it is possible to search for all countryspecific records by using the Ctrl+F ‘find’ function in this document. For example, typing ‘Kenya’ in the search box will find any text/records (in titles of articles, blog postings and other documents, or if part of the annotations) containing the word ‘Kenya’. The same function can also be used to search for names of authors. Most journal articles published online are freely accessible, but a small number are behind a paywall and subscription based. For web documents and online journals the date the source was accessed is indicated [in square brackets]. If I have missed any articles/papers, books, theses, or other relevant documents on the topics covered by this literature review (and published or posted in 2017), I would be grateful if these could be brought to my attention. Please email details to hanszell@hanszell.co.uk, together with an electronic file of the document, or a link to it. All these records, and many more, are scheduled to be integrated into the online database of Publishing, Books &amp; Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is currently in the process of migrating to a new hosting institution, Kwara State University Library in Nigeria (see also press release at http://www.hanszell.co.uk/Press%20release.pdf). Unfortunately, due to a number of technical issues at KWASU relating to metadata mapping and software functionality, there have been serious delays in the migration of the database, but it is now hoped that the new hosts will be able to re-launch it during the early part of 2018, on a more dynamic, Drupal-based open source content management platform. The first batch of updates and over 500 entirely new records will then also be added to the database. For more information about the new database to be launched by Kwara State University Library, contact Teslim B. Balogun, Project Director, PBRSSA, teslim.balogun@kwasu.edu.ng.