June 8, 2010 AFC Announces New Members of Board of Trustees

Maribel Alvarez of the University of Arizona, Jean Dorton of Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and Margaret Z. Robson of New Mexico have been appointed to the board of trustees of the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), president pro tempore of the United States Senate, appointed Dorton and Robson, while Alvarez was appointed by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

As trustees of the Americal Folklife Center, each of the new appointees will serve a six-year term, providing crucial advice and policy direction for the center.

Alvarez is a folklorist and anthropologist at the University of Arizona. She has served on the board of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, as executive director of MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, and as board president of the “Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival.”

Dorton is the community and legislative liaison and manager of advancement at the Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg. She serves on the Kentucky Arts Council and has also served on the boards of the Kentucky Folk Art Center and the East Kentucky Concert Series.

Robson has served on the board of the Santa Fe Art Institute and on the board of the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Currently, she sits on the board of the American Folk Art Museum in New York and is a regent for Museums and Monuments New Mexico.

Alvarez, Dorton and Robson will join Patricia A. Atkinson of the Nevada Arts Council and Joanna Hess of the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI) of Santa Fe, N.M., both named to the panel in May, as members of the board.

The American Folklife Center was created by the U.S. Congress in 1976 through Public Law 94-201, the "American Folklife Preservation Act," which directs the Center to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival presentation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, public programs, and training." The center includes an archive, which was established in the Library of Congress in 1928, and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.