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American Folklife Center Annual Report for 2004Peggy A. Bulger, Director
Arrearage Reduction and ProcessingSignificant progress was made in the area of arrearage reduction during the past year, as is illustrated below. The pace of this work at AFC has been accelerated as a result of the hiring of two new staff members: cataloger Margaret Kruesi, and processing technician Sarah Bradley Leighton. Gains in arrearage reduction with regard to Veterans History Project collections have also been realized. (See separate report from VHP.) 1. Completed Processing FY04:
Key AcquisitionsThe Alan Lomax Collection was acquired as a result of a cooperative agreement between the AFC and the Association for Cultural Equity, with the generosity of an anonymous donor. The collection comprises the unparalleled ethnographic documentation collected by the legendary folklorist over a period of sixty years, including more than 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of motion picture film, 2,450 videotapes, 2,000 scholarly books and journals, hundreds of photographic prints and negatives, and over 120 linear feet of manuscript material, comprising correspondence, fieldnotes, research files, programs scripts, indexes, and book and article manuscripts. This enormous collection documents music, dance, narrative, games and other forms of traditional expression from throughout the United States and from many other countries. Ethnomusicologist Martha Forsyth, of West Newton, Massachusetts, has donated a collection of over 275 original field recordings of traditional songs and instrumental music of Bulgaria, which she recorded between 1978 and 2004, along with associated indexes and lists. Folklorist Don Yoder, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, has donated a collection of his field recordings that document aspects of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, particularly folk belief, sermons and religious music, folksong, and harvest festivals. The collection comprises 79 reel-to-reel tape recordings, and was created by Yoder over the course of more than thirty years. Pete and Toshi Seeger, of Beacon, New York, have donated their film collection to the American Folklife Center. Officially donated in June 2003, the collection is now at the Library of Congress. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the Seegers began to document on film the music, dance, games, and occupational lore of many places they visited around the world. The Pete and Toshi Seeger Film Collection includes film shot from 1957 to 1964, including footage such important musicians as Big Bill Broonzy (1957), Odetta (1957), and Bob Gibson (1957), and Elizabeth Cotten (1960). There is footage from the National Folk Festival (1957) and a Texas prison (1965). The majority of the footage, however, derives from the Seeger family's ten-month performing tour, 1963 and 1964, which included stops in Japan, Indonesia, India, East and West Africa, Israel, the USSR, and Ireland. Reference, Research, and Outreach, Including PublicationsField School for Cultural Documentation. On March 19, David Taylor and Kristi Bell, a folklorist at Brigham Young University, briefed staff of Utah senators Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett and representative Chris Cannon on the AFC's upcoming summer field documentation training school, held in Provo. From July 11 through July 31, the AFC conducted the field school there, in conjunction with Brigham Young University. Course participants documented family-run orchards of Utah Valley. This was the seventh field school that AFC has sponsored since 1994. AFC staff members David Taylor, Michael Taft and Ilana Harlow were among the course's faculty members. Montana Heritage Project. In October, Guha Shankar traveled to Montana to meet with staff of the Montana Heritage Project (MHP) and to visit area schools to learn how teachers incorporate the principles of place-based education into their classroom teaching. The project has now entered its tenth year. March 28-31, Peggy Bulger traveled to Helena, Montana, for the Montana Heritage Project Student Conference. The Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington, also attended the conference and delivered an address. On September 7-8, Bulger traveled to Billings, Montana, for a meeting of the executive board of the Montana Heritage Project. Discussions with National Library of Egypt. January 22 to February 1, Peggy Bulger was a member of a delegation of Library of Congress officials that traveled to Cairo, Egypt, in order to meet with their counterparts at the National Library of Egypt and discuss programs, activities and possible collaborations with the National Library of Egypt. She conferred with the library's director about the creation of a folklife center at the National Library. Utah Heritage Project. February 23-26, Guha Shankar traveled to Utah to meet with faculty and staff at Brigham Young University, AFC's latest partner in heritage place-based education projects. The Utah Heritage Project is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2004, following the AFC's field school for cultural documentation, which is also being co-sponored by BYU. While at BYU, Shankar delivered lectures on the AFC's mission and its programs in heritage education. Ethnographic Thesaurus Project. Working in partnership with AFC, the American Folklore Society has received a grant of $484,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to complete the development of an ethnographic thesaurus. In recognition of the fact that there is no standard for describing traditional culture in an agreed-upon vocabulary, the project will create an online, searchable ethnographic thesaurus that will act as an authoritative list of terms for those working in folklore and ethnomusicology, as well as in the related fields of anthropology, literature, and music, and also for the general community of researchers. A four-person project staff was hired and work is now in progress. StoryCorps Project. On October 23, Peggy Bulger and James Hardin traveled to New York City for the opening of the first StoryCorps oral history project interview booth, in Grand Central Terminal. Bulger was among the people who spoke at the ceremony, which included StoryCorps founder David Isay, Studs Terkel, and several representatives from the government of the City of New York. WIPO/UNESCO. AFC continues to be involved with international discussions concerning intellectual property, folklore, traditional knowledge and genetic resources. Peggy Bulger serves on the U.S. delegation to the World Intellectual Property Organization, and, along with Michael Taft and David Taylor, participates in meetings of U.S. government officials concerning cultural policy matters relative to UNESCO and other international bodies. On March 13-18, Bulger was a member of the U.S. delegation at a meeting of the WIPO Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore, in Geneva. On March 25, AFC co-sponsored, with the National Endowment for the Arts, a conference on issues pertaining to folklife as they have arisen at UNESCO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Jane O'Brien Fund Established. On July 15, Dr. Daniel Botkin's gift of $10,000, to establish the Jane O'Brien Fund, was formally accepted by the Librarian of Congress. The fund, named for Botkin's late wife, will support AFC's mission to "preserve and present American Folklife" in its myriad forms. Library of Congress Comes to Your Home Town Project. From November 13 to 17, David Taylor took part in the "Library of Congress Comes to Your Home Town" project by presenting workshops on oral history interviewing techniques in Columbus, Cleveland, and Cambridge, Ohio. He was part of a small group of Library staff, including the Librarian, Dr. James H. Billington, who discussed various Library of Congress projects and programs during visits to these three Ohio cities. AFC staff member Andrew Wallace produced a special "Homegrown" concert, featuring Tony Ellis and the Musicians of Braeburn, at the Pritchard Laughlin Civic Center in Cambridge, Ohio. Video Conferences. On July 6, Cathy Kerst, along with Judy Graves of the LC Digital Reference Team, participated in a video conference, entitled AGathering Community Stories," for graduate students in education at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as part of the "Adventure of the American Mind" program. On August 3, Kerst and Graves held a video conference on "Gathering Community Stories" for teachers in the public schools in Alamogordo, New Mexico, as part of an education conference organized by the local school district. Planning for Museum of the City of Boston. David Taylor participated in a planning meeting in Boston to discuss the development of a new "Museum of the City of Boston" and associated research and programming, including the documentation of the "Big Dig" construction project from a cultural perspective. The meeting was convened by the Boston Museum Project and attended by a small group of invited planners, oral historians, folklorists, and representatives of the National Park Service. Assistance to Educators in New Mexico. From January 25-30, David Taylor was in New Mexico, with a group of other subject specialists from the Library, in order to share information on Library of Congress resources with public school teachers and other educators. He met with teachers at numerous schools in the vicinity of Albuquerque and Sante Fe, the senior staff of the institute of American Indian Art (Sante Fe), and the principal and librarian at the Santa Clara Pueblo primary school. The trip was sponsored by the Institute for Education and the Arts, a Washington-based non-profit that has launched a special initiative in New Mexico. Assistance to the National Folk Festival. Peggy Bulger served as presenter at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine, from August 27-29. American Folklife Center: An Illustrated Guide. The Library has published a handsome 84-page publication about the American Folklife Center and its collections titled American Folklife Center: An Illustrated Guide. The principal author is James B. Hardin. MARC Records. Maggie Kruesi created and
updated MARC records in the Library of Congress online catalog, for all
AFC finding aids currently available on the Center's website (49 finding
aids). MeetingsOn October 24, Peggy Bulger, Michael Taft, and David Taylor attended a conference "Material Ireland/Virtual Ireland: The American Conference for Irish Studies," Mid Atlantic Region, at the University of Maryland, in College Park. Taft and Séamus Ó'Catháin, University College, Dublin, provided the keynote "From Wax to Bytes: Imprinting, Recovering, and Preserving Early Field Recordings from the Irish Folklore Commission." Peggy Bulger participated in the closing plenary panel, "Virtual Ireland: Next Steps." On November 25, Peggy Bulger represented the American Folklife Center at an intergovernmental meeting to discuss folklife programs at federal agencies and possible collaborations. On December 5-7, Peggy Bulger attended a meeting of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in Charleston, South Carolina, where she spoke about the work of the AFC. The winter, spring and summer (Vol. 26, 2004) issues of Folklife Center News were published. They include articles about such things as the acquisition of the Lomax, Korson, Halpert, Seeger, and Yoder collections; AFC's involvement with the StoryCorps oral history project; the Ethnographic Thesaurus project; the Family Genetic History Project; the release of new online presentations; and the activities of the Veterans History Project. Michael Taft's article "The Save Our Sounds Project" is included in the publication Sound Savings: Preserving Audio Collections. Proceedings from the Symposium, July 24-26, 2003. Washington: D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2004. La Tradición Popular y la Investigación de Campo: Una introducción a las técnicas de investigación was published. It is a Spanish version of Folklife and Fieldwork, translated by Pampa Rótolo. David Taylor's essay, "Documenting Local Culture: An Introductory Field School," co-written with Inta Carpenter and Philip Stafford, was published in volume 22 (2004) of NAPA Bulletin, a publication of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology. On June 24, Judith Gray gave a presentation on AFC reference resources to participants in the Library's current Reference Collections course. On July 21, Ilana Harlow delivered a lecture as part of the Omnibus series in the Special Collections Division of Brigham Young University's library. Todd Harvey, serving as the program assistant to Catholic University Library and Information Science courses held at the Library of Congress, coordinated an informational open house at the Library, on July 22, that introduced students and other Library staff to the program. On July 13, Michael Taft delivered the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives Founder's Lecture at the Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. The title of his lecture was "Household Folklife: Documenting and Preserving Family Traditions." On July 18-19, Michael Taft gave lecture, describing the history and activities of the American Folklife Center and the Archive of Folk Culture, to the Alabama Folklife Association, Alabama Community Scholars Institute, Livingston, Alabama. On September 15, Cathy Kerst made a presentation to graduate students
and their professors who are participants in the Bucerius Seminar in American
Archives and American History sponsored through a partnership of The German
Historical Institute in Washington, the Department of History of the University
of Chicago, and the John F. Kennedy Institute for North On September 20, Guha Shankar delivered a presentation to approximately thirty international museum, library, and education professionals taking part in the Multi-Regional International Project in Cultural Heritage Preservation, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. On September 20, Nora Yeh gave a presentation at the Morikami Museum,
in Delray Beach, Florida, about the Archive of Folk Culture and the American
Folklife Center. She also discussed the acquisition of Japanese and Japanese
American materials, collecting methodologies, and fundraising issues with
the museum's director. Development/Updates of Web Pages, Symposia, Talks, Workshops, ExhibitsNew Online Materials. Online presentations made available include: "Folk-Songs of America: the Robert Winslow Gordon Collection, 1922-1932"; "Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories"; "A Teacher's Guide to Folklife Resources"; "Annual Reports of the American Folklife Center"; the finding aid "A Preliminary Listing of Banjo Performers on Field Recordings in the Archive of Folk Song"; the finding aid "The Anne and Frank Warner Collection"; the finding aid "Hawaii Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture"; and the finding aid "New York Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture." Website Improvement. AFC staff met weekly with Library of Congress staff involved in website management and design in order to advance the redesign of AFC's homepage. The revised version of the Reading Room page with improved navigation features and new search capabilities was uploaded in April, and a complete redesign is well underway and should be completed early in FY05. Contributions to "With an Even Hand" Exhibition. Todd Harvey, AFC reference specialist, provided curatorial assistance to the Library's exhibition "With an Even Hand: Brown v. Board at Fifty." Peggy Bulger introduced Juan Williams, who delivered a lecture and signed copies of his book as part of the opening celebration for the exhibit, which opened May 13, 2004, and continues through November 13, 2004. The exhibition features several items from AFC collections. International and Domestic Professional Visitors. Many individuals and groups visit the American Folklife Center to hear presentations and consult with staff about such things as the funding and management of cultural agencies, cultural documentation and preservation, archives management, digital technology, and related topics. Visitors from libraries and cultural organizations outside the United States included: on October 10, a curator of the Oral History Centre, National Library of New Zealand; on October 14, a representative of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); on October 20, a delegation of Dutch businessmen and businesswomen, sponsored by the Atlantic & Pacific Exchange Program; on October 27, representatives of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; on November 7, a cultural attaché at the Embassy of France; on November 6, a group of twenty-five Russian museum directors and cultural administrators; on November 18, a group of ten participants in a multi-regional International Writing Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State; on November 19, a group of ten archivists, librarians, and museum curators from Ecuador; on November 20, a dean of international studies and two directors of international study centers from Vietnam; on February 17, a Dutch film crew making a documentary on Alan Lomax; on February 23, the director of the National Library of Brazil; on February 27, six librarians and cultural specialists from Belarus; on February 24, a Japanese film crew making a documentary of StoryCorps and the WPA; on March 8, a representative of the State Media Archive of Denmark; on March 23, four cultural specialists from Kazakhstan; on April 1, a delegation from Ukraine as part of an international-visitor project called "The Impact of Cultural and Historic Preservation on Tourism"; on April 16, a World Cultural Leaders group from Russia; on May 24, a musicologist from the Vicente Emilio Sojo Music Studies Institute, Caracas, Venezuela; on June 30, representatives of the British Broadcasting Corporation's Radio 4 series, "Losing the Past"; on July 6, a representative from UNESCO; on July 8, the chairman of the Committee on Culture and Development of Kyrgyz Language, Kyrgyzstan; on July 30, visitors from the World Bank, and the Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Ltd., and the Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau; on August 25, two cultural specialists from Palestine; On September 22, a folklorist from India; and On September 29, the head of the Archaeology Department, Art Research Institute, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Significant Challenges Faced By the DivisionPlanning Move to Permanent Quarters. AFC staff worked throughout the year with other Library staff and contractors to plan the move of AFC offices to permanent space in early FY05. Included in the new office space will be high-end and specialized work stations which will allow staff to more efficiently manage in-house audiovisual and digital projects. This move to permanent space with well-designed public and staff areas will allow AFC staff to work more efficiently and, thus, carry out its mission more effectively and better serve its various constituencies. Enriching ScholarshipHenry Reed Fund. The first grant from the Henry Reed Fund, in the amount of $500, was awarded to Elizabeth LaPrelle of Rural Retreat, Virginia. LaPrelle, who is a singer of Appalachian ballads, will use the grant to enhance her understanding of ballads and other traditional music from the Applachian region. The Henry Reed Fund was established to benefit the activities of folk artists, especially activities that drawn on or strengthen the collections of the Archive of Folk Culture. Gerald E. and Corrine Parsons Fund for Ethnography. Andrea Frierson-Toney, of Washington, D.C., was awarded a $600 grant from the Parsons Fund to allow her to do research on Gee's Bend, Alabama, material in the Center's Robert Sonkin Collection. The Parsons Fund supports research on ethnographic materials in the Archive of Folk Culture and other research collections within the Library of Congress. Internships. AFC had five summer interns during 2004, and they accomplished a variety of work concerning the collections in the Archive of Folk Culture. The interns were: Elisa Babel, a senior at Merrimack College; Tori Kellough, an MA candidate at Texas Woman's University; Caitlin Miller, a junior at Colby College; Anthony Potoczniak, a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University; and Sarah Reeder, a senior at The College of William & Mary. Junior Fellows. Two Library of Congress
Junior Fellows worked at the Archive of Folk Culture during 2004: Rita
Colavincenzo, a recent graduate of University College Dublin; and Stephanie
Schmitz, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland. Colavincenzo
helped process the International Storytelling Collection, and Schmitz worked
on the Aaron Ziegelman Collection and others. Public ProgramsOctober 4: The third annual National Book Festival was held on the National Mall, and, once again, the AFC produced a program of storytelling and music. This year's program featured Bobby McMillon, Gayle Ross, Frankie Manning, Ed Gero, Emery Battis, Tinh Mahoney, Carmen Deedy, Paul Zarzyski, Norman Kennedy, and Djimo Kouyate and family. October 8: Wylie and the Wild West, featuring Wylie "Gus" Gustafson, from Dusty, Washington, and his four-piece band, presented a concert of "fine western music." The group was introduced and interviewed by Washington State folklorist Jens Lund. October 14: Nancy G. Heller delivered a lecture on flamenco dance, which was enhanced by demonstrations by Nancy K. Sedgwick, Lourdes P. Elias, Jaime Coronado, Marija Temo, and Manolo Leiva. October 21: journalist and author Scott Alarik presented a lecture on the topic "Folk Music in the 21st Century: the Road from Here," based on his new book Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground. October 23: Balkan singer Tatiana Sarbinska performed traditional songs of Bulgaria. November 12: Chuna McIntyre and the Nunamta Yup'ik Eskimo Dancers presented songs, stories and dances from southwestern Alaska. November 13: Folksinger Odetta performed in the Coolidge Auditorium, accompanied by pianist, Seth Farber. The concert celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of AFC's Archive of Folk Culture. November 20: the Indian musical ensemble Ganga, featuring Hitabrata Roy and his family, performed in the Madison Hall, singing and playing music from the East Indian state of Bengal. November 21: Michael Chyet, folklorist and cataloger in Middle Eastern Languages at the Library of Congress, gave a lecture entitled "Telling the Tale of the Innocent Slandered Maiden." December 3: AFC held an open-house celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the creation Archive of Folk Culture. Formal remarks were presented by AFC director Peggy Bulger and staff members Michael Taft, Judith Gray, Todd Harvey, Ann Hoog, and Jennifer Cutting. December 11: the Colombian musical ensemble Sensación Vallenata con Gustavo Nieto, from Wheaton, Maryland, presented a concert, which was part of the Library's "Capital Roots" series. February 25: AFC staff members John Barton and Myron Briggs gave a talk on the Center's new online presentation "Voices from the Days of Slavery." Barton described technical aspects of the site and Briggs read excerpts from the audio recordings of interviews with former slaves. March 10: Marcel Bénéteau, University of Windsor, presented a lecture on French folksongs. March 23: AFC folklife specialist Ilana Harlow presented a slide-illustrated lecture on the topic "Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Creative Responses to Death." March 25: A reception was held to celebrate the acquisition of the Alan Lomax Collection. Formal remarks were offered by Peggy Bulger, James H. Billington, Mickey Hart, Anna Lomax Wood, and Bess Lomax Hawes. In addition, a song was sung by Jean Ritchie, who had been recorded by Alan Lomax in the 1930s. Following the reception, Dr. Billington hosted a dinner for members of the AFC board, members of the Lomax family, and other invited guests. April 1: An evening concert, titled "Masters of Mexican Music" was held in Coolidge Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. This performance by a national touring show, produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts, drew a standing-room-only crowd that included many members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a large contingent from the Embassy of Mexico. April 15: A performance by guitarists Norman and Nancy Blake opened the Center's "Homegrown" concert series. Folklorist Teresa Hollingsworth, of the Southern Arts Federation, introduced the Blakes. April 27: Bart Plantagena presented a lecture titled "Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling around the World," which was based on his recent book on the subject, and yodelers Randy Erwin and Cathy Fink demonstrated yodeling techniques. The program was part of the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series. May 18: Don Roy Trio and Florence Martin presented a concert of Franco-American fiddle music and songs from Maine, as part of the "Homegrown" concert series. May 25: Nora Yeh, AFC folklife specialist, presented a lecture titled "Eight Sounds of Chinese Musical Instruments," which was part of the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series. June 15: The Paschall Brothers, an a cappella singing group that performs gospel music in the Tidewater Virginia tradition, presented a concert which was part of the "Homegrown" concert series. Jon Lohman, Director of the Folklife Program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, introduced the program. After the concert, the Foundation sponsored a luncheon for the performers and guests from the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk and Traditional Arts Program. July 14: The Oinkari Basque Dancers, from Boise, Idaho, gave a performance which was part of the "Homegrown" series. United States Senators Larry Craig and Michael Crapo, from Idaho, were introduced by Associate Librarian Deanna Marcum and offered remarks before the performance. Idaho state folklorist Maria-Carmen Gambliel introduced the group. July 16: Maria-Carmen Gambliel, Director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program, Idaho Commission on the Arts, delivered an illustrated lecture, "Basque Culture in the Western United States," as part of the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series. August 18: The Phong Nguyen Ensemble, from Ohio, presented a concert of Vietnamese music, as part of the "Homegrown" series. August 31: AFC staff member Maggie Kruesi presented an illustrated lecture, "From Patent Medicines to Patents for Indigenous KnowledgeBMaterial and Spiritual Economies," as part of the Center's Benjamin Botkin Lecture Series. September 20: Folklorist Angus Kress Gillespie, of Rutgers University, presented a lecture titled "The Lore of America's Coal Miners: A Fresh Look at the George Korson Collection, as part of the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture series. September 28: Anjani Ambegaokarn gave a performance of North Indian Kathak music and dance as part of the Center's "Homegrown" concert series. September 29: The National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows Dinner, in the Library's Great Hall, was co-sponsored by AFC, NEA, and National Council for the Traditional Arts. Key Personnel ChangesMargaret Kruesi was appointed Cataloger on February 2. Gene Berry was appointed Assistant to the Director, effective April 4, 2004. James B. Hardin, the Center's long-time writer/editor, retired on April
30, 2004. Diane Kresh was appointed director of the Veterans History Project, in July 2004. She succeeds interim director, Bev Lindsey. Anneliesa Clump Behrend was hired as Public Affairs Specialist for the Veterans History Project in August 2004. Monica Mohindra became the Veterans History Projects new coordinator for oral history workshops in August 2004.
Reference TransactionsFor the dates:
Other Statistics
Acquisitions StatisticsAmerican Folklife CenterAudio Materials: 5,470 Manuscripts: 347,866 Maps: 60 Moving Images: 5,268 Music (sheet): Pamphlets: 44 Photographs: 6,435 Posters: 16 Other Print Materials (ephemera): 1,853 Machine Readable Materials: 7
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