Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

This collection includes materials and records created by Centron, a film production company based in Lawrence, Kansas, from its establishment through its purchase by Coronet in the 1980s. These materials cover financial documentation, production notes, photographic materials, audiovisual materials, film awards, and artifacts relating to Centron’s various film productions and to its overall operations.

The two woodblocks in this collection reflect the strong tradition of Confucianism in Korea during the reign of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). Both books are collections of Confucian writings and consist of Chinese texts rendered in Korean. Images of folio book pages printed from these woodblocks, downloaded from websites where the entire printed books can be viewed, have been printed out and are shelved with the collection.

Herk Harvey was an actor, vice president, director, and producer for Centron Films in Lawrence, Kansas. This collection contains film treatments, notes, correspondence, catalogs, slides, contracts, a mayoral proclamation, news articles, photographs, scripts, and an Academy Award Nomination plaque.

Richard Rhodes, born in Kansas City, Kansas, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose many books and articles reflect his wide ranging subject interests. In these papers are manuscripts of his writings, copies of his many published works, related correspondence, some personal material and photographs, and the author's extensive research files, containing more than one hundred audio tapes of interviews that he conducted.

This collection consists of chapter 45 of the Taebanggwangbul hwaŏmgyŏng [The Sutra of Garland Flower of Great Square and Broad World of Buddha], written in calligraphy and probably dated between 1300 and 1350 in late Koryŏ dynasty (918-1392). The Avatamsaka sutra is a mid-fourteenth century depection of Siksananda's Tang Dynasty era (695-699) translation of volume forty-five of the Avatamsaka sutra manuscript.