​Following the recent destructive Table Mountain fire that damaged several buildings at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the various divisions at Stellenbosch University (SU) have committed to support their peers.

The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa (ALSA), a unit based in SU's Department of Botany and Zoology, and the SU Library have already reached out to their UCT counterparts.

UCT's Jagger Reading Room (previously the JW Jagger Library) was one of several buildings damaged during the fire. The Jagger Reading Room housed some of Africaʼs most special collections.

Ria Olivier, principal investigator at ALSA, said they would be assisting UCT with rebuilding its special and rare Antarctic collection, which was also lost in the fire. Duplicates of books that have been donated to SU over the past few years will be given to UCT, as well as a collection of new publications. “Anyone who wishes to donate books can contact me on [email protected]. Please enter 'Antarctic book donation' in the subject line and provide a list of titles you want to donate," said Olivier.

Ellen Tise, senior director of SU's Library and Information Service, too has reached out to the UCT community and offered to extend the services and assistance currently provided only to SU staff and students to the UCT community as well. A number of booking slots will also be allocated to the UCT community to access printed material such as newspapers and government publications. In addition, printed material can be scanned or photographed and then e-mailed to UCT staff and students on request.