On February 5, 2026, Lawrence Reviewed collaborated with Spencer Research Library to ask visitors to think critically about the North Family Papers. Explore their responses about deciding what to document in the gallery below.
Featured Review by Grace Brazell
The Spencer Research Library opened for public use in 1968, and since then, the space has housed the University of Kansas’ rare books, manuscripts, and archival materials for use by professors, students, and researchers of all kinds.
Before an item ever ends up on a desk in the Reading Room, it will have been touched by dozens of hands, all in the hopes that it will help someone answer a question. Each item that comes into the building has been selected by our curatorial staff, prepared for use by our processing and preservation staff, and described for discovery by our cataloging staff. All this has to happen before it can be requested and paged for use by researchers.
It’s an inherently optimistic venture, I think. The idea that saving and storing old things will somehow connect people across the vast expanse of time, that it is in some way vital to what it means to be human moving forward. That connection is why it’s so important to look critically at what we are collecting, and how. The materials in the collection describe an experience – they give a voice to those who are not present. The collection itself will describe us – what we chose to keep, what we didn’t - whose voices we are sending forward. It’s a weighty task to undertake, to try and capture the past for the future. To collect and preserve what we hope will be answers to questions that haven’t been asked yet.
I give the relentless hope of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library five stars.
Grace Brazell is an Administrative Associate in the Public Services unit at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.
I give deciding what to document...
Prompt: Every day, we have to make decisions on what parts of our life to record and preserve. In the North Gallery, you can see how the North Family kept their papers on a spindle they could go back and review. Reflect on how you document your own life.
