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Event Audio

To listen to an audio recording of a previous Library special event, click the icon. The audio file will launch the media player on your computer.

The most recent recording displays at the top. The Library offers recordings only with the permission of the presenter. Please allow 7-10 days for the recording to be posted.

  • Katherine Kranz shares the stories of her fellows from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2002, who have faced little but war since graduation day.
    In the Shadow of Greatness: Voices of Leadership, Sacrifice, and Service from America’s Longest War
    Sunday, May 19, 2013
    Central Library

    The first to graduate after the events of 9/11, the midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2002 have faced nothing but war ever since. Katherine Kranz, herself a member of that class, presents their stories in In the Shadow of Greatness: Voices of Leadership, Sacrifice, and Service from America’s Longest War.

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  • Author and economist John Blundell looks at the lives of women such as Anne Hutchinson, Rosa Parks, Mercy Otis Warren, the Grimke sisters, and Alice Paul to refute the idea that women desire and benefit from big government.
    Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History
    Monday, May 13, 2013
    Central Library

    From Anne Hutchinson, whose doctrinal disputes with the Puritan clergy led to her expulsion from colonial Massachusetts, to Rosa Parks, who became a Civil Rights icon by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, women have helped shape the American experience.

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  • Aaron Barnhart and Diane Eickhoff present their new travel guide, which explores historic sites along the Kansas-Missouri border.
    The Big Divide
    Wednesday, April 24, 2013
    Central Library

    Diane Eickhoff and Aaron Barnhart offer a new way to appreciate local history with The Big Divide, a travel book that chronologically examines historic sites along the Kansas-Missouri border. From pre-history through the Border War, Civil War, and on to the 20th Century, this guide employs point-by-point directions, photos, and maps to explore the region’s rich past.

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  • Television newsman Jim Lehrer and author Lee Banville join Library director Crosby Kemper III for a public conversation that provides insight into the presidential debate moments that shaped history.
    A Conversation with Jim Lehrer
    Monday, April 22, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Television newsman Jim Lehrer has presided over 12 presidential and vice-presidential debates and written about them in his 2011 memoir Tension City. Now, MacNeil/Lehrer Production has published Debating Our Destiny, a multimedia-enhanced ebook by University of Montana journalism professor Lee Banville on the history of presidential debates.

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  • Jazz expert Chuck Haddix follows the rise and fall of the Kansas City band that during the 1920s took the Midwest, and then the entire country, by storm with hits like Yes Sir, That’s My Baby and What A Girl! What A Night!
    The Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra - Chuck Haddix
    Sunday, April 21, 2013
    Central Library

    Beginning with their regular gig in the Plantation Grill at Kansas City’s Muehlebach Hotel, the Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra in the 1920s took the Midwest, and then the entire nation, by storm. UMKC jazz expert Chuck Haddix follows the rise and fall of the band that had hit recordings like “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “When You’re Smiling,” “The Flippity Flop,” “Kansas City Kitty,” “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Harlem Madness,” and “What A Girl! What A Night!”

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  • Author William Hogeland explains how debt, speculation, foreclosures, protests, and crackdowns made us a nation.
    Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation
    Wednesday, April 17, 2013
    Central Library

    Arguments over taxation and “constitutional conservatism” are nothing new, William Hogeland points out. His new book brings to life the violent conflicts over economics, class, and finance that played directly into the hardball politics of forming the nation and ratifying the Constitution — conflicts that still affect our politics, legislation, and national debate.

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  • In Behind the Kitchen Door, Saru Jayaraman explores how restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America and how poor working conditions - discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens - affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables.
    Behind the Kitchen Door
    Thursday, April 11, 2013
    Central Library

    How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions — discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens — affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables?

    In Behind the Kitchen Door Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of a national restaurant workers organization, provides a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of eating out.

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  • Damon Talbott examines the legacy of Duncan Hines from his career as a famous restaurant critic to the founding of the line of cake mixes that bear his name.
    From Famous Critic to Faceless Brand: The Life and Legacy of Duncan Hines
    Sunday, April 7, 2013
    Central Library

    Damon Talbott examines the legacy of Duncan Hines from his career as a famous restaurant critic to the founding of the line of cake mixes that bear his name.

    Through the shifting roles of Hines, Talbott explains how taste is neither an object to acquire nor a state of being to achieve, but instead an ongoing process, a temporary association of things considered “good.”

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  • Dave Helling of the Kansas City Star moderates a panel of experts discussing whether Kansas City, Missouri, should switch from a police department run by the state to one under the direct control of the mayor and city council.
    Should Kansas City Pursue Local Control of Its Police Department?
    Thursday, April 4, 2013
    Central Library

    The Kansas City Star’s Dave Helling and an expert panel discuss whether it is time for control of the Kansas City Police Department to revert from the state back to the city. Participants include former Police Commissioner Karl Zobrist, former Police Chief Jim Corwin, City Councilman Ed Ford, and Steve Glorioso, who led a campaign to change St. Louis’ police governance law.

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  • Scholar Henry Adams discusses the life of his great-great-great-great-great grandmother, who witnessed the American Revolution and left behind insightful and sometimes ascerbic impressions of the Founding Fathers.
    Abigail Adams
    Wednesday, April 3, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Abigail Adams, the wife of one president and the mother of a second, was significant not only for her accomplishments as a diarist and letter writer but for the influence she had on successive generations of the Adams family. Scholar Henry Adams, the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Abigail and John Adams, looks at his forbear’s life and writing, especially her often caustic impressions of the Founding Fathers.

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