<div>The earliest known identification of subject
librarianship in African academic was in the mid-1960s (Afavia, 1983), which
coincides with the development of law and medicine branch libraries at the
University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to provide adequate library
material firstly for the undergraduates and the teaching staff, providing
bibliographical aids, specialized collections (Made, 1969: 241). Data collected
in a study conducted in 1981 by Avafia (1983) found that academic librarians at
the University of Zimbabwe practiced a functional/form type of subject
librarianship where subject support services are provided and academic
librarians also perform traditional cataloguing, serials and acquisitions
functions in a centralized location. <br></div>