Rare Books, Floridiana & Institutional Repository: Home

Vision Statement

Broadening student's perceptions of the world, one book at a time.

Mission Statement

The mission of Rare Books, Floridiana & Institutional Repository (Rare Books) is to preserve culturally relevant items to support student learning and experiences through interactions with historically relevant resources in the classroom, at events, through research access, and during student employment or internships.

Rare Books is committed to preserving and providing access to old, rare, valuable, or institutionally identified subject-specific books for the education of the Flagler College community. Items in the collection date from the 12th century to recently published faculty books.

The 2,600+ books, maps, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, letters, photographs, artwork, manuscript leaves, and ethnic clothing contained in this department are kept separate from the regular collection due to age, rarity, fragility, edition status (1st editions), or added considerations (signed, prior ownership by someone important, affiliation to Flagler College or St. Augustine). Some books or other print materials were donated to Flagler College expressly to be treated with the extra care a special collections department implies.

• Access to Rare Books is by appointment only, Monday thru Friday. Please send Katherine Owens an email (kowens@flagler.edu) with your request.
• Rare Books is a non-circulating collection; the items may not leave the building.
• We understand that professors or students may need long-term access to materials. These items will be pulled and kept to one side in Miss Owens's office for their use.

This unit does have a collection development policy that is updated on a regular basis. Items are purchased due to the generous donation from and endowment in Mrs. Marifrances Engelhardt's name for the purpose of increasing the number of rare books available to students. The current collecting foci for this collection are items in the following fields or on the following subjects:

• Faculty/Staff Author Collection (Institutional Repository)
• St. Augustine, Florida
  • Historical in nature
  • Fictional representations in St. Augustine or St. Johns County
• Old Florida Guidebooks
• Publisher's bindings or Fine bindings (Beautiful Books)
  • Signed bindings are the current focus
• Fragments of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts
  • [The cost of a complete manuscript is prohibitive at this time.]

If you are interested in donating to the collection, please read the following guidelines:

• Due to space constraints, donations are accepted on a case-by-case basis. Please contact Miss Owens directly with a description of the item(s) you are interested in donating. Books infested with insects or that are experiencing an active mold bloom will not be accepted.
• Please review the Donation Policy for book donations to the regular Circulating Collection.
• If you are interested in donating items related to the College, Henry Flagler, or the Hotel Ponce de Leon, please contact the College’s Archives Specialist, Jolene DuBray, jdubray@flagler.edu.