Fire damages historic South African library https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=de9cd6ba32&e=9dc40acf40 Forest fires raging in South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park have reached the University of Cape Town and gutted the reading room of its main library https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=9099d924e2&e=9dc40acf40, which houses irreplaceable documents and records from the country’s past. “We lose that texture of everyday life and struggles with a catastrophe like this,” says historian Sarah Emily Duff. The university’s botany building was also seriously damaged. Researchers have put out a call for anyone with photos or scans https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=23e56e1101&e=9dc40acf40 of the library’s collections to come forward to help recover some of the lost records. The “damage is total” says Timm Hoffman, a historical ecologist. The damage is total’: fire rips through historic South African library and plant collection University of Cape Town risks losing ‘irreplaceable’ historical material on anthropology, ecology and politics. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01045-4 Very sad to read this post/news HR Mohan -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.