eference Services: Special Collections staff provides reference services at the reference desk on Level 12. Staff assists users with identifying and locating material of interest and answering questions about holdings. Orientation is given to outside groups. It includes general information about the collection and how to use the collection effectively.
Photocopying: All photocopying of material is subject to copyright regulations. A photocopy machine is available on this level.
Displays: The staff are pleased to coordinate themed displays or exhibitions by special arrangement.
ACCESS TO SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Material housed in Special Collections can be accessed by means of the UWC online catalogue. It is a closed-access collection restricted to in-house use only. Entrance is free to UWC staff and students, as well as members of CHELSA institutions.
Please Note: To safeguard the unique collection researchers are obliged to comply with the reading room rules. No bags are allowed in the reading room area. Please only use a pencil when taking notes from a Special Collections book. A student or staff card must be presented to the Librarian when material is requested.
In 1965, the apartheid government swooped on District Six, Cape Town, forcibly removing its occupants and declaring the area a “whites-only” zone, the rich fabric of an impoverished but vibrant community was torn to shreds. The District Six Collection provides a collection of historical materials and books on studies of District Six.
The term Africana refers to materials, such as books, documents, or art objects, relating to the history or culture of African peoples. In the case of UWC the Africana Collection focuses on works dealing with sub-Saharan Africa. The collection concentrates on historical and heritage studies, arts, fauna and flora, biographies and theology.
This remarkable collection of books, ephemera, posters and serials represents the concentrated and systematic gathering of both currently available and scarce out of print publications for more than 40 years. Primary concentration is on Mozambique. Strong coverage for other states in Southern Africa provides access to similar topical coverage in the social sciences and history. The collection is one of the finest of its type in private ownership in North America. Publications either not held in the world’s great libraries, or else present in only three or fewer, underscore the depth of documentation on most aspects of Mozambique’s difficult history.
Primary sources: government reports, contemporary accounts under colonial administration and Independence, 19th century descriptions and travel narratives, and documentation created and issued by FRELIMO. (40 leather-bound volumes of collected documents)
Secondary works: over 2000 titles. Monographs in Portuguese, English, literary works, entire series of Heinemann African Social History and Ohio University New African History.
Prof. Joseph Rotblat was a nuclear physicist, who worked on the Manhattan Project, where the nuclear bombs were developed that were later dropped on Japan. He left this project before its completion as a matter of conscience when he discovered that the Germans during World War II were unable to make the bombs and that the Americans were intending the bombs for use on Japan. This experience had a lasting effect on him and he began to work tirelessly for nuclear disarmament and the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.
With Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell he founded a group called Pugwash, named after the town in Canada where the group held its first conference. The group mainly included nuclear scientists around the world who were all concerned about nuclear weapons and their staggering increase and testing during the Cold War. Pugwash members held workshops, conferences and meetings often influencing governments behind the scenes to re-orient their foreign and nuclear policies. For his work, Prof. Rotblat and Pugwash were jointly awarded the Nobel PeaProf. Joseph Rotblat was a nuclear physicist, who worked on the Manhattan Project, where the nuclear bombs were developed that were later dropped on Japan. He left this project before its completion as a matter of conscience when he discovered that the Germans during World War II were unable to make the bombs and that the Americans were intending the bombs for use on Japan. This experience had a lasting effect on him and he began to work tirelessly for nuclear disarmament and the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.
With Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell he founded a group called Pugwash, named after the town in Canada where the group held its first conference. The group mainly included nuclear scientists around the world who were all concerned about nuclear weapons and their staggering increase and testing during the Cold War. Pugwash members held workshops, conferences and meetings often influencing governments behind the scenes to re-orient their foreign and nuclear policies. For his work, Prof. Rotblat and Pugwash were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
There are Pugwash branches in many countries around the world and also in SA. I was fortunate to be introduced to the group by my lecturer during my M studies in 1999 and as a result became involved in Pugwash activities to promote social responsibility in Science and world affairs. When I was studying in the UK, I was co opted onto the British Pugwash group’s executive committee and came to know Prof. Rotblat quite well. It is because of this connection that I was contacted by the Pugwash office in London after Prof. Rotblat’s death. His main archives are at the Churchill Archive Centre at the University of Cambridge and most of his other books have been donated to Bradford University. The Pugwash London group wanted to donate the remaining books from Prof. Rotblat’s library to UWC. The request was also send to Archbishop Tutu. As a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, the two great men knew each other and Archbishop Tutu immediately agreed. Prof. Stan Ridge, vice rector at the time, also recognised the value of the donation and accepted it on UWC’s behalf.
The Joseph Rotblat Collection consists of 400 books and extensive runs of 15 journal titles: nuclear physics
Prof Vernon February (1938 – 2002) was born in Somerset West. In 1963 he went into exile in the Netherlands and spent 33 years as senior researcher at the African Studies Centre in Leiden. He published books and articles in the field of African languages and literature, the literature from the Dutch Caribbean (Surinam and the Antilles) as well as Afrikaans literature. He was also a poet and storyteller and activist in the anti-apartheid movement in the Netherlands. He became extra-ordinary professor in the department of Afrikaans & Nederlands at the University of the Western Cape in 1991.
The Vernon February collection is comprised of two parts: his personal library and some manuscripts.
The Library collection extends to 75 shelves of books that reflect his own research interest: African, African Diaspora and South African languages and literatures, particularly Afrikaans. Around a quarter of the collection are well-known literary works; the remainder might be described as a specialist collection, providing a rich depth of material that may no longer be easily obtainable. Some titles may be the only copies in the country.
Keith Gottschalk served as Head of Department (2004-2006), when he also hosted the SA Association of Political Studies biennial conference. His forty scholarly publications are mostly on South African political dynamics. His current research and publications focus on the African Union family or organizations and African integration, and on space policy for developing countries. Keith has also published a poetry collection Emergency Poems plus over one hundred poems in literary journals. Keith is the Vice-President of the UWC Convocation, Chair of the Friends of the UWC Library and an Exco member of the South African Space Association.
Keith is an Extraordinary Senior Lecturer in the Political Sciences department.
Keith Gottschalk donated an extensive collection of local newspaper clippings related to political developments from the 1970s onwards.
Digital humanities are an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It entails the systematic application of digital resources in the humanities as well as the analysis of their use.
YouTube Video: Digital Humanities Definition
YouTube Video: Digital Humanities Definitions 2 0
SADiLaR
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is a national centre supported by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) as part of the new South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap
SADiLaR serves an enabling function, focusing on all of South Africa's official languages and supporting research and development in the fields of language technologies and language-related studies in the humanities and social sciences. The Centre facilitates the creation, management, and distribution of digital language resources, as well as relevant software, which are made freely available for research purposes through the Language Resource Catalogue.
Link: https://sadilar.org/
Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa
The Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) was officially established with the acceptance of its constitution at a general meeting of participants on April 5, 2016. Participants to the First National Digital Humanities Workshop held in 2015 at the North-West University (NWU), Potchefstroom, South Africa, decided in principle that a professional DH Association for Southern Africa should be established, and a Steering Committee was elected to further this cause.
https://digitalhumanities.org.za/
