The Library Division

The Western History Collections library is housed in the former law library in Monnet Hall on the historic north oval of the University of Oklahoma. The library of the Western History Collections serves as the main reference center for both published works and manuscript collections. Always noted for the strength of its holdings on Native American culture, the library began with a focus on the history, ethnology and anthropology of Oklahoma and expanded to include first the Great Plains and the Southwest, and later the entire Trans-Mississippi West.

The Frank Phillips Collection, devoted to the history, ethnography and prehistory of Native Americans and the history of the Trans-Mississippi West, serves as the nucleus of the Western History Collections Library. The Library has eleven other named collections that complement its general collection scope. They are the Glenn P. Bradley, E.E. Dale, Alan Farley, Patricia Grass, John Morris and Fred Schonwald Collections, all relating to Oklahoma, Native Americans and western frontier history; the Norman Brillhart Collection on the life and career of General George A. Custer; the Henry Bass Collection of Abraham Lincoln literature and the Civil War; the Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fay Collection on the Louisiana Purchase and the St. Louis World's Fair; the Earl Bell Collection relating to Arctic explorations; and the Bill Burkhardt Collection of western fiction paperbacks. The library also has an extensive collection of nearly 20,000 microforms, that supports both published and unpublished holdings in the areas of western history and Native American cultures.