FINDINGS

Existing access to journals

AJDP was based on the premise that African published journals were not being accessed within Africa. Data was gathered from answers to the questionnaires submitted by journals and libraries prior to their inclusion in AJDP.

· Excluding Africa Development (during the pilot year it was discovered that this journal could be distributed free of charge on application and it is now supplied gratis to all libraries in AJDP), the number of existing African university library subscriptions to the journals included in the pilot project are as follows:

· Libraries were asked the reason why they had not placed subscriptions for the journals which they were now selecting. Inadequate funding was the reason given in over 95% of the replies. This reason was often coupled with an acknowledgement that the library did not know of the journal's existence.

No. of journals (n=17)	Library subscriptions	Exchange with Libraries
9	0	0
4	1	0
2	3	0
1	0	4
1	0	2

Publication

Only journals with a proven record of publication were included in AJDP. Their publication record in 1994 was therefore monitored. Data was gathered from the pre-participation questionnaire and from the records of despatch.

· Viability of a journal is usually reflected by the number of paid subscriptions attracted. The journals in AJDP had a very wide range, indicating that there is not necessarily a correlation between viability and income from subscriptions. The usual reason is that many African journals receive considerable subsidies from outside agencies. One journal indicated that only 20% of its editorial, production and distribution costs came from paid subscriptions; the remaining amount was covered by a foreign donor.

No. of paid subscriptions	No. of journals (n=18)
0-10	3
11-20	1
21-30	0
31-40	2
41-50	0
51-100	0
101-150	2
151-200	3
201-250	2
Over 250	5

· Only 50% of the journals sustained a relatively accurate and up to date publication schedule. This shows that even well established journals remain highly vulnerable.

· 9 of the 18 journals kept to within three months of their projected publication schedules for 1994. 5 maintained the exact schedule. 2 gave reasons for the slight delays (no paper at the printer, sudden change in editorial/secretarial staff)

· 4 of the 18 journals had already acknowledged that they were behind in publication and AJDP had agreed to pay for the distribution of already published issues. Of these four journals, the two from Ghana are continuing to catch up and have issues currently in press. The other two (Journal of African Religion and Philosophy and Journal of Pure and Applied Science) have not indicated that the next issue is in press. So considerable delays are expected

· of the remaining five:

African Urban Quarterly ceased to communicate after receipt of the subscription, income and has not despatched any issues. This journal recorded the highest number of paid subscriptions (2,000) and its failure was therefore unexpected

Insect Science and its Application only managed to publish one of its projected six issues in 1994; it has put in place a schedule to catch up within 1995. This journal reported 200 paid subscriptions and is internationally funded; again failure was unexpected

Education with Production published its first issue of the 1994 volume, but the second issue due in November 1994 has not yet been published. This journal is in its tenth year of publication and failure to maintain the publication schedule was unexpected

African Environment and African Administrative Studies acknowledged problems in publication of the 1994 volume and offered previously published volumes as replacements. No indication of the proposed publication date for 1994 issues has yet been offered

Despatch

As each issue was mailed, the journals were asked to submit a record of despatch, giving the names of the libraries and the date of posting.

· records of despatch were received from all the journals (apart from African Urban Quarterly and African Administrative Studies). None had any problems in despatching by airmail through local post offices. African Administrative Studies (in error) sent all the issues to London and they were then re-mailed from UK to the individual libraries

· Africa Media Review notified all subscriptions agents that they had had technical setbacks in processing subscriptions in 1994. They offered to replace missing issues. No other journals reported problems in processing subscriptions

Receipt

As each issue was received, the libraries were asked to submit a record of receipt. This included the date of receipt. From this data, rates of non-receipt and time taken between despatch and receipt have been calculated and thus the effectiveness of the postal system evaluated. (Njala University College, Sierra Leone was closed in December 1994, because of rebel activity and did not submit any returns. These issues have not been recorded as not received.)

· About 13% of journal issues were not received. It is difficult to find any pattern in the record of non-receipt. The journals with the highest level of non-receipt were posted from Senegal and Botswana; other journals from those countries recorded some of the highest receipt levels. Nor do individual countries record high levels of non-receipt

Title of journal (n=17)	No. of issues posted	No. of issues not reed	% of issues not reed
Africa Development	16	0	0%
Africa Media Review	18	6	33%
African Administrative Studies	10	1	10%
African Environment	9	4	44%
African Journal of Library...	22	4	18%
Bull. Chem. Soc. Eth.	14	0	0%
Discovery and Innovation	16	0	0%
East African Medical Journal	48	8	17%
Education with Production	12	4	33%
Ethiopian Medical Journal	20	0	0%
Ghana Journal of Ag. Sci.	7	0	0%
Insect Science	9	1	11%
Journal of African Rel. & Phil.	20	2	10%
Journal of Pure & App. Sci.	26	6	23%
Journal of Social Dev. in Africa	26	0	0%
Legon J. of Humanities	20	0	0%
Zimbabwe Journal of Ed. Res.	30	7	23%
Total	323	43	13%

· 95% of journal issues were received within one month of the date of despatch. The remaining 5% took up to four months. It is not possible to say whether the delays were caused by the postal system (e.g. consigning by surface rather than air) or within the internal postal systems of the universities

Journal use of income

· ten journals submitted reports on how they had used the income acquired through AJDP. Nine of these journals were also the ones which had maintained either a successful 1994 publishing schedule or their programme of catching up on publication

· ways in which these journals used the income are given in the following table:

Title of journal	Printing	Manag't	Publicity	Contribs
Africa Media Review		Ö
African Journal of Library...		Ö	Ö
Bull. Chem. Soc. Eth.			Ö
Discovery and Innovation			Ö
East African Medical Journal		Ö		Ö
Ghana Journal of Ag. Sci.		Ö
Journal of Pure & App. Sci.	Ö		Ö
Journal of Social Dev. in Africa	Ö
Legon J. of Humanities	Ö		Ö
Zimbabwe Journal of Ed. Res.		Ö	Ö
Total	3	5	6	1

· six journals used the income to publicize their title and thus gain more subscriptions. A brochure/flyer was printed (Discovery and Innovation, Journal of Pure and Applied Science) and, for the Journal, was mailed to overseas libraries. The remainder sent complimentary copies to outside institutions, libraries, and abstracting and indexing journals

· five journals used the income to improve publishing management. Printing costs are rising in Africa and four journals used the income either to introduce or improve their DTP systems, so that they could submit camera ready copy:

"... setting up an in-house typesetting facility in order to provide the printer with camera ready materials in order to reduce further increases in printing costs" (East African Medical Journal)

"It was decided that in order to correct typographical errors generally introduced by the printers, the journal should submit the manuscripts in camera ready form. As a result some secretaries were paid to put the manuscripts in machine readable form using WP5.1. The manuscripts were then printed using a laser printer. In addition to minimizing typographical errors, it has also reduced the cost of printing by about 10%" (African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science)

"We are using the extra income to update and maintain our desktop publishing system, which was installed in 1990." (Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science)

"HRRC has managed to update the desktop publishing facilities for its journal and other publications... these activities will boost the quality of our productions." (Zimbabwe Journal of Educational Research)

· one journal redesigned its distribution system:

"ACCE has utilized the income by streamlining the distribution system of the journal. The accounting system was not effective and did not facilitate the smooth processing of orders. Many orders were not processed and payments not followed up. With the services of an accounting consultant, we first created a workable manual system that indicated the status of each order and subscriber. We will soon be able to computerize the system." (African Media Review)

· three journals used the income to cover the costs of printing the next issue:

"presently we have had to use the money to assist in defraying the production costs which were supported by a donor, but since 1995 have to be borne by the School" (Journal of Social Development in Africa)

· only one journal used the income to attract more contributions. The East African Medical Journal offered international potential authors free copies and then requested them to offer these copies to their institutional libraries as a form of publicity.

Library use of journals

Libraries were asked to publicize the journals by photocopying contents pages and distributing to interested members of staff. They were asked to fix a record of use form to the cover of each journal. They were also asked to send a questionnaire on use to interested members of the academics staff. Although many libraries (e.g. University of Dar es Salaam and University of Zambia) indicated that the journals were being displayed and used by staff and students, only six of the libraries returned any actual data on use: Addis Ababa University; University of Ghana; University of Cape Coast; Egerton University; Fourah Bay College; Copperbelt University. The difficulty of getting users to record a reading on the record slip was pointed out by many libraries. Addis Ababa therefore replaced this method with on the spot observation. The fact that the use of libraries in Ghana came to a standstill because of closure of the universities, has been taken into account. Within the context of the pilot year, it was not feasible to evaluate the use made of African as opposed to non-African journals.

· on average, an AJDP journal was read 3 to 4 times a day. At Addis Ababa and the ' Copperbelt Universities, the majority of users were staff and post-graduate students. At Fourah Bay College, students predominated. The journals which recorded the highest use were:

Africa Media Review

African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science (even when the university did not host a library school, this journal was used by library staff)

Discovery and Innovation

Journal of Social Development in Africa

The issue of African Administrative Studies (advertised as a bilingual journal) was totally in French. Two libraries quickly pointed out that it would have zero use, as neither staff nor students could read French.

· Concerning the impact made by the journals on teaching/research, 37 questionnaires referring to 11 journals were returned:

Title of journal (no. of questionnaires returned)	Lecture	Student Reading	Ongoing Research	Future Research	Other
African Environment (1)		1	1
African Journal of Library... (11)	1	1	3	8	6
Bull. Chem. Soc. Eth. (1)			1	1	1
Discovery and Innovation (9)		5	1	1	3
East African Medical Journal (1)					1
Ethiopian Medical Journal (1)					1
Ghana Journal of Ag. Sci.(l)		1	1
Insect Science (1)	1
Journal of Pure & App. Sci. (3)	1	1		1	1
Journal of Social Dev. in Africa (6)	3	2	3	3	1
Legon J. of Humanities (2)		2		2	2
Total	6	13	10	16	16

General interest, keeping up to date, curiosity made up the other reasons given for use. One respondee intended to use the Journal of Social Development in Africa as a model for an intended student journal. The journal for which questionnaires were returned were also the journals which were most read. All naturally enough wanted the subscriptions continued. However there is no data on how many questionnaires were sent out for which journals and the rate of questionnaire return.