Professor Wilfred Kaplan, retired professor of mathematics from the University of Michigan, donated over 600 books to Eastern Michigan University. “It’s a treasure,” says Dr. Walter Parry, “some of the books have real historical value. A few of the books are from the 1800’s - the average age is about 50 years.” Most of the books will become part of the Halle Library collection – others will find a home in the Department of Mathematics’ library located on the fifth floor of Pray Harrold. If you can imagine a bookshelf that is about 48 feet long, you have an idea of the magnitude of this donation. A large number of the books are in a foreign language, mostly German.

Actually, a large number of the books belonged to Dr. Kaplan’s wife. Dr. Kaplan met his wife at the Swiss Technical University, ETH. She also had a Ph.D. in mathematics and many of the donated books belonged to her. Between the two of them, they had quite a library of their own.

Dr. Kaplan had a long and distinguished career at the University of Michigan – he arrived at the University of Michigan in 1941. He spent some time at Brown University. Brown University organized a group of mathematicians to collaborate on research related to ballistics as part of the war effort and Dr. Kaplan was part of this group.

Thank you to Professor Kaplan from the Department of Mathematics for this generous gift.