The archives of the Kentucky Folklife Program is being merged with the existing WKU Folklife Archives. With the transition of the KFP from the Kentucky Historical Society to Western Kentucky University earlier this year, parallel plans were made for the KFP archives to be transferred to the Kentucky Museum at WKU.
This transfer will merge KFP archival material with the already existing WKU Folklife Archives.
Upon the completion of integrating the two collections, the Kentucky Museum will become home to one of the most extensive and dynamic archive of culture and folklife in Kentucky along with such collections as those at Berea College and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at University of Kentucky.
The combined archive will include more than 150 collections spanning across the Commonwealth of Kentucky and covering more than 40 years. The current WKU Folklore Archives includes the Lynwood Montell Collection of interviews, research and documentation of William Lynwood Montell, one of WKU’s first Folk Studies faculty members; the Sarah Gertrude Knott Collection consisting of correspondence, photographs and files from her time as Director of the National Folk Festival Association; and numerous projects and papers produced by WKU Folk Studies faculty and students.
