Special Collections
Special Collections is a dedicated library section housing rare, unique, and historical materials, focusing on preserving regional, cultural, and academic heritage for in-depth research and study. UWC Special Collections focusses on the history and activities of the Western Cape, including the Cape Flats, San, District Six, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Featured collections include the Africana, District Six, Allen Isaacman, Kieth Gottschalk collections. The library also hosts digital and digitised collections of photographs and newspapers. These collections can be found on the UWCDigital website. The Special Collections section is located on Level 12 of the Main Library and is open between 09:00 to 16:00 Monday to Friday.
The Africana Collection consists of books, documents, and art objects relating to the cultural and natural history of Sub-Saharan Africa, concentrating on art, biographies, theology and natural history. The natural history collection focusses on the unique biodiversity of the Western Cape region.
The Khoi and San peoples collection focuses on a hunter gatherer community that were the first inhabitants of the Western Cape geographical area. This collection contains ethnographic publications, folktales, conference proceedings, dissertations as well as materials focused on current socio-economic conditions.
The District Six collection focuses on a once culturally diverse community in the City of Cape Town. This area was declared "Whites only" under the Apartheid government's Group Areas Act of 1966 which saw Black and Coloured residents forcefully removed starting in February 1968. Reparations have seen some residents returning to the area as of 2021 after 55 years.
The Mozambique Collection (Allan Isaacman Collection) was developed over forty years. Prof. Allan Isaacman has published widely on the history of Mozambique and Southern Africa. This collection of 2,283 books was donated in 2012 is still growing.
Newspapers and newspaper clippings. This collection includes newspaper clippings collected by Mr. Kieth Gotshalk focused on political and labour developments in South Africa from the 1970’s onwards and the UWC Bulletin, a university newspaper dating back to the 1980's.
The Photographic Collections include smaller collections such as the Oppelt Collection covering a variety of activities from political protests to festivals and alumni at the institution. This collection has been digitised for online access.
Digital Humanities is a developing field at the intersection of information and communication technologies and the humanities and social sciences. Digital Humanities applies research and communication technology hardware and software to develop, explore, analyze, present and share research in the humanities and social sciences. The Special Collections section applies the Digital Humanities approach to develop the interactive online exhibitions such as UWCDigital. This platform is a collection of digital and digitised records held in the Special Collections section of the UWC Library. Digital collections can also be viewed on the UWC Scholar repository. The UWCDigital exhibition contains a collection of digital and digitised images and records based on collections held in the Special Collections section.
