The FAU Libraries collections benefit greatly from the generosity of our community. Gifts provide invaluable resources for students, faculty,  and friends who depend upon the library for teaching, study and research. Many of the libraries' rare or unique resources found in the Special Collection and Archives and the Judaica Sound Archives were gifts from the community.

FAU Libraries appreciate and encourage the donation of resources which strengthen the collections and support the University's programs. Gifts cover vast ranges of subjects and include materials in all formats: books, archival materials, personal papers and manuscripts,  sound recordings, scores, films, and videotapes. Gifts-in-kind represent valuable additions that might otherwise be impossible to obtain through regular or special library funding. Donors of library materials are among our most valued supporters.

For further information please contact Rita Pellen, Associate Director, at (561) 297-3781 or pellen@fau.edu.

Please consult the libraries' gifts/donation policy to determine if your donation meets the libraries' selection criteria.

Thank you, Mr. Hugh W. Ripley

The Library as Phantasmagoria

The Library is the storehouse of the wisdom of the world, the repository of the records of human endeavor, the transcriptions of mankind's hope, the quintessence of our culture.

-Mr. Hugh Willard Ripley, 1980

Mr. Hugh W. Ripley believes that library support is not always about the grand gesture that leads to a name in granite, but can be as  modest as the gift of a single book. In direct relation to his passion for history,  education and libraries, Mr. Ripley has donated over 3,000  books to the FAU libraries, each with the inscription: "A Gift of the Hugh W. Ripley Library Fund to the Scholarly Community of Florida Atlantic University."

Mr. Ripley, the dean of Barry University Library from 1978 until his retirement in 1998,  previously worked as the head of reference at the New York Historical Society, and as the library's collection officer at Indiana University. He received his AB and AM in history from Syracuse University, and his MS Library Service Degree from Columbia University. His long career has been that of librarian and historian, and he has continued this dual existence into retirement. 

In 2003, Mr. Ripley formalized his commitment to provide resources to the library on a continuous basis. Working in concert with the history department, he searches for both rare and specialized civil war publications, as well as general history sources that are suitable for all levels of study. Recently, Mr. Ripley has sought out and developed relationships with publishers that specialize in General Custer, and at the request of Dr. Steve Engel, purchased hard to find regimental histories.

Two Awards are given in Hugh Ripley's name:
Barry University, Best Thesis in the university's honor program
Florida Atlantic University, History Department, prize "to a student who has demonstrated his/her research skills in history methods or senior seminar."

Thank you Hugh, for your dedication, enthusiasm, and support of FAU and the free flow of knowledge and information.

Custer, curley, curtis : An expanded view of the Battle of the Little Big Horn
By Jack Pennington. Upton and Sons, 2005.
Call number: E83.876 .P464 2005

Custer : A photographic biography
By Bill & Jan Moeller.  Mountain Press, 2003.
Call Number: E467.1.C99 M63 2003

Freedom for themselves : North Carolina's Black soldiers in the Civil War era
By Richard M. Reid. University of North Carolina Press, 2008
Call Number: E540.N3R45 2008

History of the Eighth regiment Kentucky vol. inf. : During its three years campaigns, embracing organization, marches, skirmishes, and battles of the command, with much of the history of the old reliable Third brigade, commanded by Hon. Stanley Matthews, and containing many interesting and amusing incidents of army life
By T.J. Wright. Higginson Book Co., 199-?.
Call Number: E509.5 8th .W75 1990z

A matter of chastity: The High Plains saga of a woman's revenge
By Douglas Yocom. Dusty Cover Books, 2005
Call Number: KF223.L885 Y63 2005

Our regiment : A history of the 102d Illinois infantry volunteers, with sketches of the Atlanta campaign, the Georgia raid, and the campaign of the Carolines
By Stephen F. Fleharty. Higginson Book Co, 1998.
Call Number:  E505.5 102nd .F54 1998

Trench warfare under Grant & Lee : field fortifications in the Overland Campaign
Earl J. Hess. University of North Carolina, 2007
Call Number: E476.52.H475 2007

The Weary Boys : Colonel J. Warren Keifer and the 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
By Thomas E. Pope. Kent State University Press, 2002.
Call Number: E525.5 110th .P66 2002

War of the Aeronauts: A history of ballooning in the Civil War
By Charles M. Evans. Stackpole Books, 2002
Call Number: E492.7 .E93 2002