A massive collection of African art, political and cultural studies archive, which include historical documentation, books, and films, stored at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Jagger Library in South Africa have been destroyed by the wildlife which engulfed the university this week.

On Sunday, April 18, a fire that started on South Africa’s Table Mountain above Philip Kgosana Drive soon blazed out of control and, driven by strong winds, reached the University of Cape Townʼs Rondebosch campus. 

The fire gutted the Jagger Reading Room, where the African studies library is located, and which was founded in 1953, as well as two student residences and other buildings.

According to the library’s executive director, Ujala Satgoor, the fire “completely gutted” the library, raising concern that its extensive African collections and resources are irredeemably lost.

As at last count, a vast majority of the African Studies Published Print Collection - approximately 70,000 items - and the entire African Studies Film Collection on DVD, about 3,500 pieces, are estimated to have been destroyed by the fire. However, Satgoor cautioned that a full assessment of the destruction can only happen once the building is declared safe and staff are permitted on-site, and only then will a complete list of destroyed materials be compiled. There are also immediate concerns about further damage due to water seeping into the floors below the reading room. 

“This was a sad day for UCT and UCT Libraries. This loss will be felt deeply across our community as the libraries are so critical to all of us. We cannot replace the treasures of scholarship we have lost, but we can create new treasures out of our own scholarship," said UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng.

"In the same way, each of us can rebuild our own sense of purpose out of this tragedy. Our colleagues in the libraries have a long road ahead of them and many of us feel the devastation of the loss of this significant institutional asset, but we will walk this road to rebuild our facilities together.”

The library’s African collections contain more than 85,000 materials in its studies and films archive, described as a beacon of African history and intellect. These materials comprised a government publications collection from South Africa as well as other countries from the continent. Scholars came from all over the world come to study the materials, which include information relating to anti-colonial and liberation movements, and some African countries’ transition to independence as well as the cultural and neocolonial history of the African continent.

Some of these manuscripts and archives had been processed for digitization or awaiting transfer after being digitized.

Speaking on the next steps to salvaging the endangered collection and making sure that this priceless collection of history and knowledge about a continent is not lost forever, Satgoor said any materials that can be salvaged will be digitized to preserve them for posterity, and that in the future, they will be considering alternative formats in which to acquire materials.

“We do have the basis of rebuilding this African studies collection,” Satgoor said, “but the magic or beauty of working with a tangible hard copy for many researchers is invaluable.”

“It forces us also to decolonize a very colonial collection or links to coloniality so in all of this sadness and horror there is the opportunity of the genesis of something new to look forward to,” she added.

Scholars and alumni have also detailed how precious and costly the loss of these materials is to the continent.

“I can simply say that an African continent which has suffered several series of conquests has been struggling to reconstruct its own history, and particularly that which is documented,” said historian and political analyst Somadoda Fikeni. “Therefore any special collection which is frail, which is no longer available, which is not reprinted very often, tends to be priceless in terms of its heritage value, in terms of the knowledge project.”

For Professor June Bam-Hutchison, who heads the Khoi and San unit at the university's Centre for African Studies, she remembered using the Jagger Reading Room during the 1980s to access material banned by South Africa's apartheid government. The literature - only accessible with a special permit - offered her a glimpse into an unknown world of African intellectuals narrating the history of the continent before its colonization.

"That library really gave me a sense of affirmation, of belonging because I could find things in there that connected me to this land," said Bam-Hutchison.

Some African scholars and historians on social media have likened the tragic incident to the 2019 fire outbreak at the Notre Dame Cathedral in France and called for the same massive global outcry and donations that followed the French incident to be applied to this loss of a continental heritage, and rebuild the African art, cultural and political history it embodied.