Austin H. Wilkins Rare Books Collection
The Katz Library is home to both the Mary R & Francis Calvert Rare Book Collection and the Austin H Wilkins Rare Book Collection. Items in these collections are visible in LibrarySearch and appear at the location, “UMA Spec Coll,” in the catalog. All rare books are on view in the Special Collections corner on the second floor of Katz Library.
Rare books and manuscripts in the Wilkins Collection include volumes concerning forestry, in particular forestry and forests in Maine, and are held on display on the second floor of the Katz Library.
Austin H. Wilkins (1903-2005) was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1926 with a degree in forestry. He went on to study forestry at Cornell University and received his master's degree, his studies taking him overseas to Europe in the 1920s. By 1928, he had returned to the U.S. and had begun a 44-year tenure (1928-1972) with the Maine Forest Service.
In 2002, Wilkins received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Maine at Augusta for his contributions to the state of Maine and forest preservation.
For more information about Wilkins, read his obituary in the Bangor Daily News.
