FORT KENT – Gilbert Albert has made French his life’s work.

A teacher and administrator of efforts to develop French immersion programs for many years, Albert is now an assistant professor of education at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. It was in that position earlier this fall that he realized in order to teach future educators about children’s French literature, he needed books in the university library.

There weren’t any, or very few.

Instead, his students had to use the public libraries in Fort Kent and Madawaska. The books in the Madawaska library, and those from a similar collection in Van Buren, had been bought when Albert headed a French immersion program funded with federal money.

Except for a three-year stint in the military, part of it in Vietnam, Albert’s life has been dedicated to French education and the development of French programs in northern Maine schools.

He grew up in the northwestern Maine woods, in T15 R15, a small American settlement on the Quebec border. He received his early education in Canadian schools at St. Pamphile, Quebec, and furthered his education at UMFK, graduating in 1967.

Returning from the military, he taught French in Caribou and most of the St. John Valley school systems. He has taught at UMFK and the University of Maine in Orono and has served as administrator of French immersion grant programs.

After deliberations with UMFK education and French department teachers earlier this fall, Albert launched an effort to raise $10,000 to put 700 French literature books on the library shelves at the university.

“The books should have been there a long time ago,” Albert said Tuesday. “We had no books, or nearly no books that could be used in the training of teachers.”

“There’s never been a course like this at UMFK,” Albert said. “Developing it further, we hope to bring in teachers already in the field to take the course.

“My five students had to travel to find books needed for their education,” he said. “We now have some, and we will be getting a lot more.”

Albert and four of his students traveled to Rimouski, Quebec, last week and purchased $1,000 worth of children’s literature books.

Within a very short time, Albert has raised $2,000 of his $10,000 goal. On Tuesday he said he was confident of raising thousands more in the near future.

He received $500 each from the French Heritage Council at UMFK and the St. John Valley’s Le Club Francais. He acquired another $1,000 from Project Mainestay, a federally funded University of Maine program for which he works half-time.

The Mainestay program works to develop programs for French educators. Albert is attempting to get French educators from throughout Maine to Les-Isles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec next summer for some French immersion education.

“I have long felt the need for the university to house a collection of French children’s literature,” Albert said. “Along with helping students at UMFK, the books will benefit St. John Valley families with children enrolled in language programs at local schools.

“It was our initial thought to reach out to various organizations and request money for the purchase of the books,” Albert continued. “We are pleased with the response, and we are well on our way to establishing northern Maine’s largest repository of French children’s literature.”

Albert’s vision is shared by Virginia Lausier, associate professor of French at UMFK, and Bruno Hicks, chairman of the education department at UMFK.

Only one of Albert’s five students is from the St. John Valley. The other four who accompanied him to Rimouski last week are from Sacramento, Calif.; Gillsum, N.H.; North Stonington, Conn.; and Phoenixville, Pa.

Albert had organized similar book-purchasing trips during the last three years when he was director of L’Acadien du Haut St.-Jean, a bilingual immersion program for the Madawaska and Van Buren school systems.