In the period from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, Ernest Oberholtzer corresponded with specific US or foreign book dealers and collected books. The main categories in his collection are natural history, exploration (especially northward), Indigenous lore and culture, anthropology, the classics of literature, music and art. Jean Sanford Replinger, founder of the programs on Mallard Island and one to whom we attribute “saving” this book collection, calls it “the accoutrements of a civilized gentleman who lived in a wilderness setting.”  The Foundation manages to inventory, repair, or restore the thousands of books in this collection, and it has been inventoried on a regular basis since the mid 1980s. A computerized database is available, and books are tracked by location on Mallard Island.