After 25 Years Guarding UNLV's Vegas Archive, a New Keeper Joins the Mob Museum

Su Kim Chung spent more than two decades cataloguing the photographs, oral histories, and showgirl memorabilia that document Las Vegas. Now she brings that expertise downtown as the Mob Museum's new director of collections and archives.

A Familiar Face Moves Downtown

For the better part of three decades, anyone researching old Las Vegas eventually found their way to Su Kim Chung. As a longtime member of UNLV Libraries' Special Collections and Archives, she helped shepherd the university's growing trove of photographs, oral histories, and ephemera documenting Southern Nevada's transformation from railroad town to resort capital.

This year, the Mob Museum announced that Chung is taking that expertise in a new direction. She has been named the museum's director of collections and archives, a role that puts her in charge of stewarding the artifacts and documents housed inside the downtown institution's landmark building, the former federal courthouse and post office on Stewart Avenue.

The appointment closes one chapter and opens another for a researcher whose name has become closely tied to how the city remembers itself, from vintage casino matchbooks to the personal recollections of the dancers who once lit up the Strip's showrooms.

Building a Career Inside UNLV's Archive

Chung's path into archival work began with a master's degree in library and information science from UCLA in 1998, with a specialization in archives and preservation. The following year she joined UNLV's Special Collections, where she would remain for more than 25 years, eventually rising to head of public services, overseeing reference, outreach, and instruction for the library's Las Vegas history holdings.

Along the way she completed a doctorate in information studies from UCLA in 2015 and built a reputation as a curator of the university's entertainment collections, an area that includes production show programs, dancer scrapbooks, and costume records stretching back decades.

Perhaps her most distinctive contribution has been an oral history effort capturing the voices of former Las Vegas showgirls and chorus dancers, many of whom performed in shows that never left a formal paper trail. Chung recorded their recollections and moderated public panels on the subject, work that helped ensure a chapter of entertainment history was not lost simply because it happened live and then was gone.

Ties to the Mob Museum Predate the Job

Chung's connection to the Mob Museum is not new. She has served on the museum's Advisory Council since 2017, lending her research background to an institution built inside a building with its own layered history as a federal courthouse. In her new full-time role, she also continues to serve on the Nevada State Historical Records Advisory Board and the board of the Showgirl Legacy Foundation, keeping a direct line between her academic work and the museum floor.

For a city whose casinos and showrooms are frequently rebuilt or renamed, that continuity matters. The photographs, playbills, and recorded memories that Chung has spent her career gathering are often the only surviving record of buildings and performances that no longer exist in physical form.

A Second Honor for the Museum's Education Team

The same announcement that introduced Chung also recognized Claire White, the Mob Museum's senior director of education and a public historian in her own right. On April 30, 2026, UNLV's College of Liberal Arts History Department named White its Distinguished Department Alumna, honoring the career she built since earning her bachelor's degree in history and secondary education from the university in 2008.

Less than a month later, on May 27, 2026, the City of Las Vegas' Historic Preservation Commission, through its Community Development Department, awarded White its 2026 Preservation Education Award for her work bringing local history to public audiences.

Together, the two announcements mark a moment when the people responsible for interpreting Las Vegas's past, both the well documented and the easily overlooked, are drawing recognition of their own. For anyone who wanders through an archive box of old photographs or listens to a recorded interview with someone who remembers a building before it came down, it is a reminder that preservation work is done by real people with long careers behind it, and that those collections are always waiting to be explored further.

Career Markers Behind the Appointment

A quick look at the timeline that led Su Kim Chung from a UCLA classroom to the director's office at the Mob Museum.

1. 1998: Earns a master's in library and information science from UCLA, specializing in archives and preservation.
2. 1999: Joins UNLV Libraries' Special Collections and Archives, beginning a 25-plus year tenure.
3. 2015: Completes a doctorate in information studies from UCLA.
4. 2017: Joins the Mob Museum's Advisory Council as an outside expert.
5. Curatorial focus: Oversees UNLV's entertainment collecting areas, including showgirl and production show history.
6. Oral history work: Records interviews with former Las Vegas dancers and showgirls, moderating public panels on their history.
7. 2026: Named director of collections and archives at the Mob Museum.
8. Ongoing boards: Continues serving the Nevada State Historical Records Advisory Board and the Showgirl Legacy Foundation.

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