UF Librarian Emeritus and author Carl Van Ness will present his new book on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at Matheson History Museum which explores why the university is in Gainesville.

The event, free with registration, will start at 7 p.m. at 513 E. University Ave. in Gainesville.

Van Ness will focus on the Buckman Act of 1905 and Florida’s decision to abandon the UF campus in Lake City and what would Gainesville be like without the university. Van Ness’s book, “The Making of Florida Universities: Public Higher Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” was recently published by the University Press of Florida.

To register for the event, click here.

The event will also be featured on Zoom. Click here to sign up for the Zoom presentation.

Van Ness, a former political papers archivist at UF’s George A. Smathers Libraries, served as head of archives and manuscripts. He was also the associate chair of the Department of Special Area Studies Collections and University Historian. He worked at UF for 38 years and retired in 2022.