Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin

Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin (1704 - 1761) was the founder of Bibliotheca Publica in South Africa. His "gentleman's library" was the largest collection of books in 18th-century Cape Town, and these books formed the core from which the entire South African library system originated. While Lord Charles Somerset proclaimed the first South African Public Library, it was the von Dessin's bequest of books to the Dutch Reformed Church that formed the foundation for the library These books were housed at the Consistory of the Groote Kerk.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.