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South Africa
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Directory Information
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South Africa has three national libraries: the South African Library (Cape Town), the State Library (Pretoria), and the
National Library for the Blind (Grahamstown). The South African Library and the State
Library have deposit privileges, as do the Library of Parliament (Cape Town), the Natal
Society Library (Pietermaritzburg), and the Bloemfontein Public Library.
The South African Library, founded in 1818, is the national center for collecting
and preserving legal deposit material, as well as rare or unique material, and is the
national center for compiling retrospective bibliographies and indexes of Southern
African materials. It established a Center for the Book in 1990 to stimulate interest in
the book and reading and to provide a forum for publishers, booksellers, and libraries.
The State Library, founded in 1887, is responsible for coordinating the national
bookstock, exchange programs with other countries, interlibrary loans, redistributing
surplus materials, and compiling the South African National Bibliography. It coordinates
the exchange of bibliographic records and national and international bibliographic
standards.
The South African Library for the Blind was founded in 1919 and became a
national library for the print handicapped in 1969. It produces and provides books in
braille and on tape and offers a service for blind students throughout the country.
Academic Libraries
Library services to academic staff and students are provided at all
22 universities and nine technikons in South Africa.
The university libraries vary enormously in size between the older and newer
universities and between universities traditionally white and traditionally black (although
formal restrictions based on race were lifted in 1986). The older university libraries
house important research and special collections, such as the Africana collections at the
University of Natal.
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