Jagger Library Emergency Response

South Africa

On 18 April 2021 the Jagger Library, housing the Special Collections Department and many of its holdings, was destroyed by the fire that engulfed the slopes of Table Mountain where the campus of the University of Cape Town is located. While the fire itself was responsible for a great deal of damage, it was only compounded by the flooding of the basements by the water needed to put out said fire. Once it was safe, the library staff along with a team of volunteers initiated a salvage response to extract all the surviving materials from the site. This project responded to the immediate need for archival stationary to be used in the triage process.