The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Kansas City Public Library. Missouri Valley Special Collections

Central Library; 14 W. 10th Street, 5th Floor
Kansas City, Missouri 64105

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 816-701-3427

Repository URL: http://www.kclibrary.org/kchistory

Repository code: mok

Repository description (CRHP): The digital gallery is available at http://localhistory.kclibrary.org/index.php

Repository description (extant): The Missouri Valley Special Collections (MVSC), which came into existence in 1960, consist of the non-circulating local history and genealogy resources of the Kansas City Public Library as well as the Library's archives.

[...] The main focus of the MVR holdings documents the history of the Kansas City region, but other areas, like border warfare and the Civil War, Native Americans of the area, explorers and westward expansion, outlaws and lawmen, the overland trails, and genealogy, have extensive resources. MVSC also acts as stewards over the Ramos collection, which is comprised of books, pamphlets, and clippings on African American history and culture.

Its extensive and rare resources of primary and secondary documents include:

* books
* periodicals
* pamphlets
* dissertations
* manuscripts
* newspaper clippings
* vertical files
* photographs
* postcards
* maps
* microforms
* audiovisual
* archival materials

Over 11,000 images of archival material such as letters, photographs, postcards, and maps were migrated in 2006-2007 from a former SQL-designed online database to the new CONTENTdm Missouri Valley Special Collections Digital Gallery. The new site went live in July 2007. New collections, like the advertising cards, Sanborn maps, and Robert Askren Photograph Collection, have been added since then. We generally add about 20-50 new items each month.

Repository type: Public Library

Collections:

Black Archives of Mid-America oral history collection