11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, Florida 32514
850-474-2213
850-474-3338 (fax)

Contact:  Dean Debolt – University Librarian
ddebolt@uwf.edu

The Special Collections Department was established in 1966 to document the history and development of the West Florida region from settlement to the present, with emphasis on the panhandle (10 counties) from 1821 to present and on the colony of West Florida (1559-1821), which covered parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia.  The collections are the largest and most comprehensive of any research facility in existence dealing with Pensacola and the Florida Panhandle.  Although a department of the largest university library between New Orleans and Tallahassee, the collections are open to all researchers, university and non-university alike.

The Department acquires records of individuals, families, businesses, organizations, local government records, and copies of materials held by other libraries, governments, and archives.  Each group of materials is a collection, and collections may include both published and unpublished materials such as letters, correspondence, photographs, maps, blueprints, booklets, publications, and other types of materials.     The Department holds some 700 collections with nearly 900,000 items.   The size and abundance of information makes a list of holdings impractical, but there are several ways researchers can utilize the collections.

A summary abstract or description of each collection appears in the library's online catalog (http://library.uwf.edu). A search online by author, title, or subject will identify books held by the library as well as collections; these will indicate Special Collections as the location. Each collection has a separate inventory, which researchers should examine by visiting the Department. For example, the Blount, Blount, and Carter Papers consist of records of the Pensacola law firm from 1906 through 1930 - some 174 boxes. The inventory is over 100 pages, but a researcher will only find the summary abstract in the online catalog. In the Department, inventories are also searchable by word and keyword, and there are other indexes available as well by visiting the Department. Users are encouraged to telephone, write, or send e-mail about their individual questions before visiting.