The history and development of the Kimberley Africana Library and its relationship with the Kimberley Public Library

Abstract

The study investigates the establishment and development of the Kimberley Africana Library and its mother institution, the Kimberley Public Library within the broader social, economical and political environment in which they took place. The history of these institutions is inextricable until 1984 when the public and Africana sections of the Library were separated and the Kimberley Africana Library was opened to the public in 1986. It was the exceptional collections of Africana and rare books which distinguished the Kimberley Public Library and the main factor which bound the history of these two institutions. The Kimberley Public Library and its progeny the Kimberley Africana Library are the products of a new industrialised era which came about after the discovery of diamonds in South Africa. They emanated from an environment which produced the new wealth of the country, an almost uncharted region which was relatively new to the established British colonies. In order to place the origins of and motivation for the establishment of the Kimberley Public Library and the Kimberley Africana Library in perspective, it is necessary in this study also to include an overview of the development of the diamond mining industry in Kimberley. This development, peculiar as it was to Kimberley, gave rise to the type of social and cultural milieu in which the Public Library was founded by the immigrants to this area. Also included in the study is a brief survey of the development of the library movement in South Africa and the role played by the Kimberley Public Library in the growth of this movement and in the expansion of public library services to the people of the country. The history of the Kimberley Public/Africana Library which covers a period of more than a century is divided into three distinct periods, namely that which deals with the institution as a Subscription Library from 1882 until 1960 and, from 1961 as a free library under the jurisdiction of the Kimberley Municipality and affiliated to the Cape Provincial Library Service. The third period concerns the dichotomisation of the Kimberley Public Library and the establishment of the Kimberley Africana Library in 1986 to house the Library’s renowned collection of Africana and rare books. This section also deals with the period after 1994 when the Kimberley Libraries functioned under the new political dispensation in South Africa. Emphasis is laid on the formation, nature and scope of the Africana Collection which was the raison d’etre for the establishment of the Kimberley Africana Library and the most significant of the items in the collection are broadly described. The study concludes with an assessment of the challenges the Kimberley Africana Library faces and suggests ways and means of resolving these. An Appendix entitled The Founders and the Builders is added in order to elaborate on the exceptional contributions of several prominent Committee members and Librarians who controlled and managed these institutions from their inception in 1882 until 2008.