Abstract
THE University of the Witwatersrand was the scene of a disastrous fire three years ago, when the greater part of its library, including the Gubbins and the Hoernle anthropological collections, was destroyed Appeals for help led to a very substantial measure of replacement, gratefully acknowledged by the University in a letter to the Appeal Committee in London, which has now issued its final report. In this, the chairman, Sir Frank Heath, observes that, while it is impossible to mention individually all the contributors, including learned, technical and scientific societies in England and America, universities and colleges throughout the British Isles and Canada, industrial firms, industrial research associations, British Government departments and the leading missionary societies having stations in South Africar very special thanks are due to the British Association, the London School of Economics and Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. New College, Oxford, and the Imperial College of Science and Technology helped to defray expenses of collection, packing, transportation and insurance. The Union-Castle Steamship Co. undertook the transport of books at a discount of 50 per cent on the ordinary freight charges, and the High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa lent an office rent-free. The Universities Bureau of the British Empire placed its council room at the disposal of the Committee for its meetings. Besides books, and manuscripts, a large quantity of pictures, coins, etc., was collected which will form the nucleus of a Johannesburg municipal museum. Some 32,000 volumes in all were dispatched by the Committee.
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Library of the University of the Witwatersrand. Nature 135, 465 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135465b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135465b0