2025 KCAA Fall Symposium

Make plans to attend the 2025 KCAA Fall Meeting on Friday, November 14, from 1:30-4:30 at The Museum of Kansas City.

Presenters from a variety of institution types will share recent community-based projects, from oral histories centered on inclusion and belonging (or documenting the lack thereof) to a project to preserve, make accessible, and involve the community in describing the recovered photograph archive of the Kansas City Star. 

Free for members, $15 for non-members, and $10 for students. (Cost of registration for non-members includes registration for a year.)

The Museum of Kansas City is located in historic Corinthian Hall at 3218 Gladstone Blvd.

Meeting Schedule:

1:30-1:45 Welcome and any brief business

Megan Burton, Senior Co-Chair

Tara Laver, Events Chair

Lisa Schockley, Curator of Collections, Museum of Kansas City

1:45-2:15 “Archives as Agents of Healing: Oral Histories, Inclusive Storytelling, and Memory in the Archives”

Ryan Leimkuehler, University Archivist, Kansas State University

Leimkuehler will present on the Truth, Community Healing, and Transformation (TCHT) group at K-State and its work to build inclusion in the university archives by developing a self-guided tour and oral history program. He will touch on shared resourcing, surviving the current political climate, and outreach.

2:15-2:45 “Kansas City’s Culturally Diverse Communities & ​the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: ​Oral Histories”

Linda Battle, Coordinator, School Programs & Partnerships, and Tara Laver, Senior Archivist, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is often referred to as Kansas City’s art museum, but which Kansas City and which Kansas Citians are important questions to ask as the museum makes fostering a sense of belonging a focus of its mission. Through this oral history project, the museum archives sought to document the historical lived experiences and perceptions of the museum among multiple Kansas City communities. Laver will share how they conducted the project, lessons learned, and interview excerpts.

2:45-3:00 Break

3:00-3:30 “The Kansas City Star Digital Photograph Archive”

Jeremy Drouin, Special Collections Manager, KCPL

Katie Eschbacher, Digital History Collections Librarian, KCPL

David LaCrone, Digital Branch Manager, KCPL

In 2022, the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections acquired the digital photo archive of The Kansas City Star newspaper. The considerable size of the digital collection – more than 900,000 files, mostly categorized by subject – presented several challenges for Library staff, including searching the collection, isolating the Kansas City-related images, rights and permissions, and extracting metadata from the individual files. KCPL’s Digital Branch and Special Collections staff will detail the acquisition, scope of coverage, and efforts to make the extensive archive accessible to the public through a dedicated website.

3:30-4:30 Tour of the Museum of Kansas City

Molly Huston, Archivist

Lisa Shockley, Curator of Collections

KCAA is Seeking Committee Leaders and Members

Becoming active with KCAA is a great way to meet other archivists and learn more about the profession. Committee chairs and officers will have the chance to build leadership skills as well as advance the mission of the organization. KCAA depends on member volunteers and cannot operate without you. Please consider volunteering for the following openings:

Website Admin

The Website Administrator is responsible for updating the organizations website. They will work with the officers of the organization to prioritize what information should be highlighted online.