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 current system emerged in 1998 from merging the South African Library in Cape Town, founded by Governor Lord Charles Somerset in 1818, and the State Library in Pretoria. The original Cape Town facility was funded through wine trade levies. Following South African democratization, legislation reorganized library services to unite both historic institutions under one national administrative framework.
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 branch holds an important collection of African musical notations and rare recordings documented by European collectors during the 19th century. It also preserves one of the few surviving original copies of the first printed edition of the Dutch New Testament from 1526, considered a historic artifact of Reformation printing culture.
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