About Us
The Notable Kentucky African Americans (NKAA) was originally a website with a series of individual web pages listing approximately 200 biographical entries on African Americans in and from the state of Kentucky. The site went live in September 2003. It consisted of one entry for each person arranged under the profession or activity in which they were notable, with references to sources of additional information.
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Why?
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For decades patrons from campus and the community have come to the reference desk asking for information on Kentucky African Americans. If it wasn't a well-known name such as Muhammad Ali or Georgia Powers or Isaac Murphy, then the odds of finding anything were slim to none. The main idea behind the website was to bring together the pieces of information found in various resources in Kentucky in order to give the patron a solid starting point.
Moving...
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The website grew at an unbelievably fast rate, and over the years a variety of enhancements were added, including both a full, single-page list (which allowed users to search the full listing) and separate files for each subject grouping, accessible from a dropbox. This required maintaining two copies of every record (since the pages were static HTML files). In addition, the website kept growing larger by the second, so a new interface became a necessity.
The Database
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With a great deal of gratitude to Associate Dean for Information Technology Kelly Vickery, Web Administration Librarian Beth Kraemer, and Programmer Brian Helm, the Notable Kentucky African Americans Database was constructed at the beginning of 2007. On April 1, a link to the database was made public. A month later the cataloging records for the database were updated.
More Information on the NKAA
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For a detailed account of the development of the NKAA, see Jones, Reinette, "Creating a Web Resource: African American Kentuckian Profiles," Journal of Library Administration, vol. 43, issues 3/4 (2005) pp. 149-159. (Electronic copy available to UK affiliates from campus machines or via EZProxy).
On May 30, 2007, the initial website was removed and users are now re-directed to the Notable Kentucky African Americans Database.
