Between 2005 and 2016, DOMUS embarked on an ambitious programme of archival acquisitions and research-related activities. With its founding in 2005, there were 20 collections in the Music Library.De Jongh, 'Armed with a Light Bulb', 212. These included the literary estate of internationally celebrated composer and conductor Albert Coates and the music library of bibliophile Michael Scott.Barry Ross, 'Maestro and Commander: The Michael Scott Collection at the University of Stellenbosch', Fontes Artis Musicae 54:3 (July–September 2007), 331-258. At the end of its first decade, the number of collections had grown to 70, including the documentary collections of important South African composers, performing artists, musicologists and music institutions. Significantly, these acquisitions had broadened the diversity of music held in the archive and studied by music researchers and students. Whereas previously the special collections of the Music Library had held only Western art music materials (complementing the focus on such music in the Music Department),Izak J. Grové (ed.), Konservatorium 1905-2005 (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 2005). DOMUS acquired popular music archives (among others the archives of Anton Goosen and Taliep Petersen, substantial materials on boeremusiek and musicians like Nico Carstens, the archives of record companies like Mountain Records and extensive archival collections documenting unwritten histories of South African music, like David Marks's Hidden Years Music Archive),Lizabé Lambrechts, 'Letting the tape run: the creation and preservation of the hidden years music archive', South African Journal of Cultural History 32:2 (2018), 1-23. https://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-14fca9725f as well as archives relating to different media in which music played an important role (for example the archive of filmmaker, artist and writer Aryan Kaganof). DOMUS also continued to acquire the archives of important Western art music composers, like Graham Newcater, John Simon, Stefans Grové, Hubert du Plessis, Christopher Langford James and Michael Blake.
