Special Collections gets a facelift

Over the past few months, the Special Collections Unit has been working with a designer to create eight posters, describing eight of our collections. We not only wanted to have posters to use for marketing outside the University if necessary, but also to increase the visibility of our collections inside the Library, as not many students or researchers know what we have.

The collections which were chosen as the most important are: 

• The Africana Collection:

The Africana collection consists of books in all disciplines limited to the history and heritage of Sub-Saharan Africa in general, and South Africa and Pretoria in particular.

• The Tukkiana Collection:

This collection consists of publications by the staff, research units/student bodies or any association/organization of the University of Pretoria. Also included are all publications that deal with the University of Pretoria or publications that were published with financial assistance from the University of Pretoria.

Masters & Doctoral research outputs of UP students are regarded and preserved as special UP Publications.

• The Reserved Collection:

This collection is made up of non-Africana books of antiquarian value and so-called high-risk books that require protection and preservation.

• The de Villiers-Roos Collection:

Adv. J. de Villiers-Roos was auditor-general of the Union of South Africa from 1918-1929, as well as journalist, secretary of the Judicial Department of Transvaal, Secretary of Justice and director of Prisons. This collection includes his book collection (housed in the Africana section) as well as his document collection, which is made up of private correspondence, historical manuscripts, telegrams and articles on the Boer War, and photo albums, among much else.

• The Du Plessis Collection:

Prof. J du Plessis was a theologian at Stellenbosch. His Africana book collection focuses particularly on early accounts of travel into the interior of southern Africa.

• The Jurriaanse Collection:

Dr Aardt Jurriaanse studied medicine in the Netherlands and came to South Africa during the Anglo Boer War. He stayed on and worked as a general practitioner in the Ermelo district of the old Transvaal. His collection of books covers the classics in literature and medicine.

• The Theology Collection:

Our Theology collection is made up of the Du Plessis Theology Collection; The NHK (Nederduits Hervormde Kerk) group of collections; and Lutherse Seminarium Collection, which was donated by the Holland-Zuid-Afrikaanse Unie in 1939.

• The South African Music Collections:

This collection includes score sheets in printed or manuscript form written by South African composers or performed by South African artists, audio/audio-visual material concerning South African performers and the personal collections, including all forms of memorabilia, of internationally acclaimed South African artists. This collection comprises the FZ van der Merwe Collection; the Mimi Coertse Collection; the Marieta Napier Collection; the Anna Bender Collection; the Stefans Grove Collection; and the Sarie Lamprecht Collection.

We had one canvas print of each poster blocked, and they are now hanging along the wall of our entrance ramp. Our staff are very proud and excited about these posters; they make our section feel as if it has had a bit of a facelift.