National Library of South Africa, National library in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa

The National Library of South Africa operates two separate facilities in Cape Town and Pretoria, with each location housing reading rooms, archival spaces, and climate-controlled storage areas for sensitive materials. Collections include millions of books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, and digital resources spanning several centuries of South African publishing history.

The National Library of South Africa was created on 1 November 1999 by merging two institutions: the South African Library in Cape Town, founded in 1818 with proceeds of a tax on wine brought into Cape Town, and the State Library in Pretoria, whose constitution the Transvaal government approved on 21 September 1887. A working group appointed in 1996 recommended a dual-site national library, and the merger was enacted under the National Library of South Africa Act.

The institution houses publications in all eleven official languages of South Africa, serving as the central repository for literary heritage from diverse communities documenting centuries of written expression. This collection reflects the country's linguistic diversity and provides researchers access to texts ranging from precolonial times through the democratic era.

Visitors should check the website for opening hours in advance and bring identification when accessing special collections. Both locations sit in central city districts with good public transport links. Researchers can request assistance navigating catalogs, and material requests may require several days lead time for retrieval from storage facilities.

The Cape Town building's 1818 founding came from a tax on wine brought into the city for sale, imposed by Governor Lord Charles Somerset, who wanted the proceeds to fund a public library. Its first major acquisition was the Dessinian Collection, bequeathed in 1761 by Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin to the Dutch Reformed Church and donated to the library in 1820.