After the democratic elections of April 1994 in South Africa, a new Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology was established, the first of its kind in the history of the country. The Minister has appointed an Arts and Culture Task Group (ACTAG) to formulate proposals for a new arts and culture policy, after wide and intensive consultation, workshops and public hearings, taking into account numerous submissions from the arts community, professional bodies, the academic sphere and civil society. The proposals, contained in a Report presented to the Minister on 31st July 1995, centred on an envisaged National Arts and Culture Council, complemented by three autonomous bodies: a National Film Institute, a National Heritage Council and a National Council for Libraries and Information.

The case of the Central Art Library in the Cape Town City Libraries illustrates the role of an art reference collection within a lending library. Such a collection should be wide ranging in scope, catering for the needs of students, professionals, and the general public, and must be built up by means of careful and informed selection, with the needs of the local community in mind. Representation of art worldwide should be complemented with documentation of the arts of the library’s own locality and nation. The Central Art Library’s reference section includes two student collections, and a number of special collections, including a collection devoted to African art, a comics collection, an image bank, and a collection of pamphlets and ephemera. Expanding the reference collection can be an effective strategy for serving the needs of the public despite a standstill or shrinking budget.

The Michaelis Art Library, part of the Reference Division of the Johannesburg Public Library Service, originated with a collection of books purchased for the planned Johannesburg Art Gallery in the 1920s. Temporarily and then permanently housed in the Public Library, the collection became the nucleus of a growing art library, the largest public art library in South Africa. In recent years usage of the library declined as a result of political tensions, but then increased in parallel with a surge of vitality in the arts which heralded the end of apartheid and the emergence of democracy. During 1995 the Michaelis Art Library was due to move into Johannesburg’s central library building.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery opened in 1915. A collection of books intended for the Gallery, but housed elsewhere pending the completion of the building, became the separate Michaelis Art Library; the Gallery gradually formed its own library, for the use of the curators. In 1986 the Gallery Library was accommodated in a new wing. Selection for the Library has reflected the Gallery’s diverse collecting activities. Latterly, the Library has worked closely with the Gallery’s education department, and as a result its resources have been made available to the wider community. In 1994 the Library was given a major art slide collection by the Rand Afrikaans University; in the same year, it received funding for the computerisation of its catalogue, which will be accessible through SABINET. Work is in progress on an index of South African art.

The Fine Art Department at Technikon Natal is supported by the Library’s art section, and by the Technikon art gallery. Within the library, the art collection, which is the responsibility of a subject librarian, is an integral part of a multi-disciplinary resource. The scope of the collection is broad, but special efforts are being made to collect documentation of South African art.

The South African National Gallery (SANG) Library has been making its resources available to school teachers since 1992. Now a new outreach project, which has been in a planning stage for some months, has been started with the loan of material to libraries situated at some distance from the centre of Cape Town.

The South African Museum (cultural history) opened in 1966 as part of the South African Museum; in 1969 it began an independent existence as the South African Cultural History Museum, with a mission to enable the ‘entire community… to enjoy and to learn about our Cape and international heritage’. The library dates back to the opening of the museum, and now comprises some 12,000 books, 900 pamphlets, and 190 current journals on art related topics. Although the library exists primarily to serve the museum staff, it is open to the public and is well used by students.