Two Georgetown residents and historians are donating much of their personal library to Southwestern University's A. Frank Smith Jr. Library Center.

Robert Utley and his wife, Melody Webb, moved to Georgetown in 1996. Utley was the former chief historian for the National Park Service and has written 16 books on the American West. Webb was a regional historian for the National Park Service in Alaska and Santa Fe, and also served as superintendent of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park and assistant superintendent of Grand Teton National Park.

After 13 years in Georgetown, the couple decided to move to a retirement community in Arizona. In order to put their house on the market, they needed to free up space in their library, which contained approximately 5,000 books. About 1,000 were sold to a collector and Southwestern will receive more than 2,000 books on Alaska, American history and the American West, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Texas, and environmental and historic preservation, among others.

“Southwestern has been wonderful to us,” Webb said in a statement. “They welcomed us as a part of the family from the day we got here. This is our way to show our appreciation to them.”