The University of Cape Town (UCT) has begun work to help save and restore valuable academic resources, including books, manuscripts, and maps, housed at the institution’s historical Jagger Library. Part of the library was destroyed by the raging fires in Cape Town at the start of the week.

The Jagger Reading Room, which was destroyed by the fire, is part of UCT Libraries’ Special Collections and housed a unique collection of more than 83 000 items of African studies material and other specialised subjects, as well as 1 300 sub-collections of unique manuscripts and personal papers. UCT Libraries Executive Director, Ujala Satgoor, says they are busy salvaging a lot material from the basement, to prevent water damage:

“We put out a call for crates so that materials could be stacked in a responsible way according to preservation requirements. And Pick ‘n Pay responded in no time at all and we’ve just taken delivery of 2000 crates which is going to assist us tremendously in our efforts today”

Source: SABC