Keeneland Report

Bill, Krista and I had an excellent day at the track on Friday!

First,we met Cathy Schenk, UK SLIS alum, at 10:30 and enjoyed a tour of the library. Built in 2002, the Keeneland Library contains more than 10,000 books, 100,000 news and trade publication, 225,000 photos and photo negatives, 1,500 videocassettes and 3,000 files of newspaper clippings.

Formerly housed in a 3,300 square-foot section of the General Administration building, incentive to build a new library came in 2000 when the Daily Racing Form donated its entire archival collection, almost none of which had been preserved on microfilm. In order to fulfill the library's mission to collect and preserve the heritage of the Thoroughbred and Thoroughbred racing and breeding, the Keeneland administration decided to build a new facility complete with proper temperature and humidity control, water-free fire protection, and appropriate lighting.

In the spring of 2007, Keeneland and UK Libraries embarked on a project to preserve and provide access to this invaluable resource. UK SLIS alum Kathryn Lybarger manages the project. The photos linked below contain some related images.

After our library tour, we ate lunch at the colorful track kitchen where the real track people eat. We enjoyed succotash, fried fish, bar-b-q, bean soup and Krista and Bill completed their meals with that down-home delicacy: banana pudding garnished with nilla wafers! We spent the rest of the day losing money, meeting people, taking photos and having an all around good time. The day was perfect, the company was excellent and the surroundings were pure Kentucky.

Click here to view the photos of our trip. Cathy welcomes visitors and encourages questions. Having worked in the library for 30 years, she has a wealth of experience related to cataloging, collection development, library management, preservation and reference. Krista and I discussed trying to organize another trip for the spring meet. Let us know if you are interested.