The fire rendered the building totally unusable and would need to be demolished and rebuilt in the long-term. Over 45,000 books, 100 computers and other essential IT equipment were destroyed.
The university has since then been receiving book donations to re-stock their loan collection and other core texts, and has converted the Main Hall into a temporary reference library to facilitate the smooth delivery of courses in the face of such a disaster.
DPU staff responded to this identified need by pooling together journal catalogues, text books and other academic literature from their private libraries, together with a contribution of new books from the UCL Press for donation. A total of 89 books were collected (77 from DPU staff and 12 new books from UCL press) and the first batch of about a third of this collection was presented to Mzuzu University at the end of the summer when staff visited for fieldwork on the Urban Africa Risk and Knowledge (Urban ARK) project.
The Land Management Department at Mzuzu University is a collaborating partner in Urban ARK project, which is funded by funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and UK Department for International Development (DFID).
The rest of the donated books will be delivered by hand on subsequent Urban ARK fieldtrips by the end of the year.
Photo: DPU’s Emmanuel Osuteye presenting a portion of the book to Mzuzu University’s Mtafu Manda (Senior Lecturer, Land Management Department)