The mission of the Special Collections[1] unit is to play a stewardship role in the preservation and proper archiving of its information resources and to ensure their optimal accessibility to the research community.
It covers the whole spectrum of subjects, with the emphasis on historical and heritage studies, arts, indigenous crafts, fauna and flora.
Housed and labeled separately but including many Africana works, are the collections of a number of eminent persons which have been acquired since the 1920s: of Stellenbosch of the Dutch Reformed Church auditor-general of the Union of South Africa, 1918–1929 part of the library of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk donated by Prof S.P Engelbrecht in 1923 donated by the Holland-Zuid-Afrikaanse Unie in 1939 President of the Orange Free State, 1864–1888 President of Transvaal, 1872–1877 A pamphlet collection consisting of approximately 22 000 items covering a wide range of subjects is housed at Special Collections.
He stayed on in South Africa after the war and worked as a general practitioner in the Ermelo, Mpumalanga district of the old Transvaal where he also farmed until the end of his life.
Some of the modern works have been integrated with the general collection of the Academic Information Service, while the rest are housed in the Old Merensky Library.
The collection, a substantial part of which includes Norwegian verse and the works of Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun, was begun by the donator's father, Prof R.M.
This collection was home to the works that were X-rated during the Apartheid years, i.e. books censored by the government, because they were considered subversive or pornographic.