We present the motivations for and methods we used to create a new ground-based photometric survey of the field targeted by the NASA Kepler Mission .
The survey contains magnitudes for 4414002 sources in one or more of the UBV filters , including 1862902 sources detected in all three filters .
The typical completeness limit is U \sim 18.7 , B \sim 19.3 , and V \sim 19.1 magnitudes , but varies by location .
The area covered is 191 square degrees and includes the areas on and between the 42 Kepler CCDs as well as additional areas around the perimeter of the Kepler field .
The major significance of this survey is our addition of U to the optical bandpass coverage available in the Kepler Input Catalog , which was primarily limited to the redder SDSS griz and D51 filters .
The U coverage reveals a sample of the hottest sources in the field , many of which are not currently targeted by Kepler , but may be objects of astrophysical interest .