Volunteers have helped the team of Jaggers Library with a massive salvage project to remove archives from the flooded basement in the building.
Cape Town, South Africa (26 April 2021) – A wildfire broke out early on Sunday morning, 18 April 2021, at Rhodes Memorial and spread to UCT a short while later. The fire jumped and spread to the University of Cape Town (UCT) Reading Room at Jagger Library, which housed over 200 years worth of history.
Thankfully the library’s fire system kicked in, and only this part of the library was damaged. The system has prevented even further loss.
The loss of the Reading Room has been a massive one, but people are working tirelessly to try and restore some of the lost information.
Last week we shared how the team at the Jagger Library were looking for donations of boxes and crates to remove the archives that survived the fire. They then needed volunteers to help them collect the archives and remove them from the basement that is currently flooded from the firefighting efforts.
They had many volunteers and were able to salvage so much more than they had hoped. The volunteers and donors of boxes made all the difference.
“The university would like to express a sincere message of gratitude to all volunteers who responded to the Jagger Library Salvage call” – University of Cape Town
Three students from Camps Bay High School have been part of the recovery process. They have been using their school holidays to help give back after the devastating fire. They have helped with retrieving archival collections from the basement of the Jagger Library and then packaged those collections. There is a level of urgency involved as the basement was ankle deep in water and 4 500 crates of archival records need to be retrieved and conserved.
Matric students Cathrine Madzatunya, Alev Guven and Rulida Louw, have returned today to continue helping remove collections from the basement.