Story by Phyllis Bratton, University of Jamestown, Raugust Library Director
Part of the Raugust Library L’Amour Collection
Shortly after Louis L’Amour’s death, Kathy L’Amour gave the University of Jamestown’s Raugust Library copies of all of his books, and continued to do so for many years after his death, as more were found among his papers and published. In this gift, she included many translations of his works.
As a result, Raugust Library holds 387 volumes of his work, 189 of them in a language other than English. These include Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Czech, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Greek, Hungarian, Slovak, Dutch, Hebrew, and Slovenian. This might be the largest collection of his works in foreign languages in the world, outside of the Library of Congress!
Mrs. L’Amour also gave Raugust Library a set of his bound works in English. For many years, these were on display with pictures and articles about him in the library’s lobby. Now, they are housed in the “Listening Room”, where students go to watch DVDs and to use other audio/visual technology. Library staff added western pictures and photographs to the room to enhance the theme.
Raugust Library welcomes residents of Stutsman County to use our collections. Library cards are available and users may check out a limited number of items. We have only two main restrictions: we do not do interlibrary loan, and we ask that people in the community not come during exam week, as we are very busy helping students finish their semester.