Book of the Month June 2012



Hierdie boek is die resultaat van 'n behoefte om hulde te bring aan die Boesmans van die Kalahari asook, om stories uit my bewaringslewe oor te vertel aan vriende en families. Dit gee die boek 'n styl van "bedstories met slapenstyd" wat ek vir my kinders sou vertel het wanneer ek van die veld af teruggekom het.. As navorser moes ek ook die unieke wetenskaplike geheime wat in die Kalahari opgesluit is , probeer ontrafel. Verder moet ek aan die leser verduidelik onder watter uniek toestande die Boesmans aan die suidpunt van Afrika oorleef het. Die faktore wat bygedra het dat ek die voorreg gehad het om in die Kalahari navorsing te kon doen kan byvoorbeeld nie verduidelik word sonder die geskiedkundige agtergrond van die gebied nie.

Ek moes gevolglik 'n keuse uitoefen in watter styl die boek geskryf word? Ek het die goue middeweg gekies om die wetenskap as doek te gebruik waarop ek my stories kon skets. Ek het sover moontlik die omgewing waarin die Boesmans in harmonie geleef het probeer skets. Die lywige lyste van dier- en plantsoorte agter in die boek sal voornemende besoekers aan die Kalahari in staat stel om goed voorbereid te wees wanneer hulle die gebied besoek. Ek deel my wedervaringe en heimweë as 'n "baie lang kampvuurstorie" met jou uit my wetenskaplike pen.

Lekker lees.

Fritz Eloff

April 2012   Bron : Eloff, Fritz  (in samewerking met Kobus du Toit) 2012, : Kinders van die duine : die lewe en omgewing van die Kalahari Boesman van weleer, Kejafa, Krugersdorp.

Book of the Month May 2012

A journal of a voyage to and from the Cape of Good Hope / Robert Henry Dingley


 One of the gems in Special Collections  is now exactly 200 years old.


It is a handwritten book entitled  A journal of a voyage to and from the Cape of Good Hope, with some sketches of the interior of that colony. Many of the sketches are in colour, giving one a vivid idea of life aboard ship in 1812. Its age, uniqueness and subject matter might make it the most valuable book in the library.


The name of the author who also made his own sketches, does not appear in the manuscript.  He was later identified as  Ensign Robert Henly Dingley, who spent three years at the Colony before returning to England.


A transcription of the manuscript was published in the Cape Times Annual of December 1930, a copy of which is held by the South African National Library in Cape Town.

Book of the Month April 2012

Dont' Joke ! the year in cartoons 1 September 2008 - 31 August 2009 /edited by Andy Mason and John Curtis

South Africa's cartooning maestros join forces with the new post-apartheid generation to tell the story of the most event-filled year since 1994. Hard-hitting and hilarious, Don't Joke! brings it all back in a rush of satires, parodies, caricatures and flights of fancy that'll rearrange your head.
Featuring nearly 400 cartoons by Zapiro, Madam & Eve, Fred Mouton, Brandan, Yalo, Jerm, Dr Jack, Mgobhozi and many more, Don't Joke! is living proof that South African cartooning has come of age.

Source : Don't Joke ! the year in cartoons 1 September 2008 - 31 August 2009 / edited by Andy Mason and John Curtis

Book of the Month March 2012

Kader Asmal : Politics in my blood a memoir / by Kader Asmal & Adrian Hadland with Moria Levy

Kader Asmal, lawyer and teacher, South African Cabinet minister,and the driving force behind the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, has been called man things - "small, bustling, curious, courageous, indefatigable" (Irish times) and "dapper, combative, witty, cantankerous, sarcastic, urbane precisely spoken" (Sunday Times). The son of a small-town shopkeeper from Natal, his life took him as far as exile in the UK, on to a senior position at Trinity College Dublin, and back to a free South Africa governed by an exemplary Constitution, which he helped device.
These memoirs are not only Asmal's personal journey. They are also the story of South Africa's transition from apartheid to freedom and democracy, in which he played a significant role, as a member of the ANC's Constitutional Committee and negotiating team and later as an MP and Cabinet minister under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. They provide testimony, too , to Asmal's lifelong dedication to freedom, equality and justice - ideals enshrined in the country's Bill of Rights, which he played a major part in writing.

Source : Kader Asmal : Politics in my blood a memoir / by Kader Asmal & Adrian Hadland with Moira Levy.

Book of the Month Jan/Feb 2012

Summa Angelica de casibus conscientiae by Angelo Carletti di Chivasso printed in 1491 in Strassburg by Martin Flach.


The first edition of the Summa Angelica appeared in the year 1476 and from that year to the year 1520 it went through 31 editions, 25 of which are preserved in the Royal Library at Munich. The "Summa" is divided into 659 articles arranged in alphabetical order and forming what would now be called a dictionary of moral theology. The most important of these articles is the one entitled "Interrogationes in Confessione". It serves, in a way, as an index to the whole work.

This incunabulum ( a book, pamphlet or broadside that was printed (not handwritten) before the year 1501 in Europe) was donated to the library by Prof. A. van Selms. It is the oldest book in die Library and is still in excellent condition, the binding intact and a few pages showing slight water damage.

Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars Minor ; born at Chivasso in Piedmont in 1411 and died at Coni, in Piedmont in 1495.

As noted in catholic hagiography, Angelo as Blessed Angelo was "known from early age for the holiness and purity of his life". He attended the University of Bologna where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Canon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor.

Book of the Month Dec 2011

From Groot Constantia to Google : 1685 to 2010 : a colourful history of brands and branding in South Africa

A history of brands and branding in South Africa uses a narrative of South Africa's social, economic and political history and consumer culture as a backdrop to the stories of many of our most recognised brands both old and new
With over a thousand pictures and illustrations including advertisements, brand registrations, products, consumer culture and moments in history, many never published before, the book is a colourful and fascinating read. It will be picked up and explored again and again for interesting did-you-knows, but also valuable insights into branding, advertising and intellectual property protection over the years.
Many of the 400-plus brands recorded in this book are over 100 years old. One of these - Groot Constantia, which dates back to 1685, was exporting to Europe as early as the 1700's. A favourite tipple of Napoleon during his exile on St Helena it was also favoured by King Louis Philippe of France.
Google by contrast is a teenager, yet recognised as one of the top four most valuable brands in the world.
The opportunity to build brands moved to another level with the coming of media advertising. Our first newspaper was the bilingual Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser or Kaapsche Stads Courant en Afrikaansche Berigter, launched on Saturday August 16, 1800. It was owned by slave dealers and privateers Alexander Walker and John Robertson - sole printers to the corrupt Governor Sir George Yong. Space was sold for sixpence a column inch and broked for two or three pence more. Almost 100 years later the first advertising agency, SA Advertising Contractors, was launched in Cape Town in 1899 and continues, after many name and ownership changes to the present day. Brand advertising expenditure in 2010 exceeded 26 billion rand
The colourful characters, brands and events that helped shape South Africa and turn it into the democratic commercial powerhouse of Africa are all part of this remarkable story that takes us from Groot Constantia to Google and a world in which branding is recognised as the most significant gift that commerce has ever made to popular culture.

Source : From Groot Constantia to Google : 1685 to 2010 : a colourful history of brands and branding in South Africa

Book of the Month Nov 2011

Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.
The stories of heritage affect the senses and emotions as much as the intellect. They combine to make up a shared memory that gives meaning to identity in the present.
The importance of individual stories is also in their power to surprise and contradict, as much as to affirm, what we have been taught about the past. The images presented here invite the opportunity to look into faces, to see gestures, poses, movement and expressions of people who have been captured by the camera and held fast in time.
These faces challenge us to meet them on their own terms, to try and imagine social conditions different from our own. They challenge us to see them in three dimensions.
Where there is a tendency to imagine the past as mired in hardship and struggle against the liberated present, these visual stories insist that the past held its joys and creativity and that the challenges of poverty and inequality continue in the present.
This book, spanning the 150 years since the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers in Natal, illustrates the power of photographs. Its lens is wide as it captures the social, the economic, the political, and the religious. It invites readers to see beyond images to the human experience in the photographs.
While the focus is broad, this collection of over 700 photographs does not ignore life's minutiae. The strength of the book lies in the interweaving of big events with the everyday as the photographs are brought to life with well researched vignettes that provide context and meaning. As it explores the many lives of Indian South Africans, this collection challenges the partitioning of identity, while acknowledging its pull and protective presence.
The story is a beguiling one that will provoke feelings of nostalgia, dissonance and intrigue, anger and hilarity, as the pages peel back history to reveal stories of passion and pain, the ordinary and the courageous

Source : Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.