FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS FALL 2001 • VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 4

American Folklife Center • The Library of Congress STAFF ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES Administration Peggy A. Bulger, Director American Folklife Center pub­ lications (including Folklife Center Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant News), a calendar of events, col­ Acquisitions lection guides, general informa­ David A. Taylor, Acting Coordinator tion, and connections to a selec­ Processing and Cataloging tion of other Internet services Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist related to folklife are available on Nora Yeh, Archivist the Internet. Todd Harvey, Folklife Specialist The Library of Congress Web Programs site is available through the World Folklife Specialist Mary Hufford, Wide Web service (http://www. Michael Taft, Folklife Specialist loc.gov/). The Center’s home page The American Folklife Center David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist can be accessed from the Library’s was created in 1976 by the U.S. Publications home page. Select “Using the Li­ Congress to “preserve and present James Hardin, Editor brary,” then select “Reading American folklife” through pro­ Public Events Rooms and Centers,” and then grams of research, documentation, Theadocia Austen, Coordinator select “American Folklife Center.” archival preservation, reference ser­ Reference The direct URL for the Center’s vice, live performance, exhibition, Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife Specialist home page is: http://www.loc. publication, and training. The Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist, gov/folklife/ Center incorporates the Archive of Coordinator The Folkline Information Ser­ Folk Culture, which was established Stephanie A. Hall, Automation Specialist vice is now a cooperative an­ in the Music Division of the Library Ann Hoog, Folklife Specialist nouncement program of the of Congress in 1928 and is now one National Digital Library Program American Folklore Society and the of the largest collections of ethno­ Robin Fanslow, Digital Conversion American Folklife Center. It is graphic material from the United Specialist, Team Coordinator available only on the American States and around the world. Rachel Howard, Folklife Specialist Folklore Society’s server: www. Christa Maher, Digital Conversion Specialist afsnet.org. The service provides timely information on the field of Veterans History Project folklore and folklife, including Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Director training and professional oppor­ Peter T. Bartis, Project Manager tunities, and news items of nation­ Sarah Rouse, Program Officer BOARD OF TRUSTEES al interest. Janice Ruth, Program Officer Virginia Sorkin, Program Officer Congressional Appointees Maegan Wood, James F. Hoy, Chair, Kansas Administrative Officer Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Vice-chair, Administrative Office Massachusetts Fax: 202 707–2076 EDITOR’S NOTES Janet Brown, South Dakota Reference Service John Penn Fix III, Washington Tel: 202 707–5510 September 11, 2001 Mickey Hart, California E-mail: [email protected] William L. Kinney Jr., South Carolina This time, instead of yellow Judith McCulloh, Illinois FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS ribbons, there was a prolif­ Nebraska Charles E. Trimble, James Hardin, Editor eration of flags. In my neigh­ Librarian Appointees David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor borhood, on Capitol Hill, they Jane Beck, Vermont Sheryle Shears, Designer unfurled from second-story Norma Cantú, Texas Peggy Pixley, Production windows and fluttered from car Tom Rankin, North Carolina radio antennas. At a candlelight William H. Wiggins Jr., Indiana Folklife Center News publishes ar­ vigil around the Capitol Reflect­ Ex Officio Members ticles on the programs and activ­ ing Pool, as senators and con­ James H. Billington, Librarian of ities of the American Folklife Cen­ gressmen held a prayer service ter, as well as other articles on Congress traditional expressive culture. It is inside the Capitol, Washington- Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the available free of charge from the area residents gathered in silent Smithsonian Institution Library of Congress, American tribute to those who lost their Michael Hammond, Chairman, National Folklife Center, 101 Independence lives in the September 11 Endowment for the Arts Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. attacks. Along with their can­ Bruce Cole, Chairman, National 20540–4610. Folklife Center News dles, many brought flags, which Endowment for the Humanities does not publish announcements (Continued on page 15) Jack Santino, President-Elect, from other institutions or reviews American Folklore Society of books from publishers other than the Library of Congress. Cover: Megan Ogulnick, Centre­ Ellen Koskoff, President, Readers who would like to com­ ville, Virginia, lights a candle at a Society for Ethnomusicology ment on Center activities or memorial tribute on a grassy slope Peggy A. Bulger, Director, newsletter articles may address overlooking the Pentagon. Photo by American Folklife Center their remarks to the editor. Mary Hufford, September 22, 200l

2 Folklife Center News American Folklife Center Collects Reactions to the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks

“They Were Heroes But Now They’re Angels.” Posters line the wall surrounding Arlington National Cemeter y, across the street from the west side of the Pentagon, where a hijacked plane crashed into the building on September 11. Photo by James Hardin, September 19, 2001

By James Hardin and Ann Hoog similar initiative from sixty years janitors, oilmen, cab drivers, ago, when Alan Lomax was serv­ housewives, students, soldiers, The American Folklife Center ing as the head of the Archive of and physicians. People of many has called upon folklorists and American Folk Song. On Decem­ ethnic groups and ages ex­ other cultural specialists across ber 8, 1941, Lomax sent an urgent pressed their opinions on the the nation to document on audio­ message to folklorists around the political, social, economic, and tape the thoughts and feelings United States to collect “man on military aspects of the attack. expressed by average citizens in the street” reactions to the bomb­ The recordings were sent to reaction to the tragic events of ing of Pearl Harbor and the dec­ the Library of Congress, where September 11, 200l. These record­ laration of war by the United they were used to create a radio ings and supporting documen­ States. Recordings were made in documentary program that was tary materials will become part all parts of the country in which broadcast on the Mutual Broad­ of the Center’s Archive of Folk people expressed their immedi­ casting System. The program Culture. ate reactions to this cataclysmic was part of a series that was The September 11, 2001, Docu­ event. Interviews were conduct­ then distributed to schools and mentary Project is modeled on a ed with salesmen, electricians, radio stations. Fall 2001 3 the memorial tributes that have sprung up near the Pentagon and at the site of the World Trade Center disaster. These tempo­ rary memorials include posters, photographs, flowers, flags, and other memorabilia through which those connected to the disaster victims and others express their grief and sym­ pathy. Audio field recordings are especially valuable elements of our historical record, Peggy Bul­ ger says. And storytelling and other forms of expression help people manage their feelings: “It is cathartic to tell stories [about] where you were when you heard about the attacks.” While the Folklife Center is also accepting some of the more poignant of the countless email “May Strength, Courage & For titude Help You Bear This Heavy Price for accounts in circulation, “noth­ Freedom.” A memorial tribute on a grassy slope opposite the Pentagon, with ing replaces the recorded a list of names and the inscription “University of Nor th Dakota School of voice,” says Ann Hoog. “When Medicine Students.” Photo by James Hardin, September 19, 2001 you listen to those voices from 1941, along with the street nois­ Sixty years later, in this time of The Center will collect and es in the background, you are national crisis and mourning, the preserve the audiotaped inter­ better able to imagine the whole Center has issued a similar call to views and supporting materials context of that particular time the folklore community to help that present the personal experi­ and place.” create the September 11, 2001, ence stories of average Ameri­ Documentary Project. The proj­ cans in the wake of the terrorist For further information, see ect was suggested by reference attack. What were they doing the Center’s Web site at specialist Ann Hoog, who noted when they heard? How have http://www.loc.gov/folklife/. the comparisons being made in their lives been changed? In Select “December 7, 1941, Inter­ media reports to the bombing of addition, the Center will collect views” and “September 11 Doc­ Pearl Harbor. Peggy Bulger, photographic documentation of umentary Project.” director of the Center, who is also serving this year as president of the American Folklore Society, has emailed folklorists around the country to “document the immediate reactions of average Americans in your own commu­ nities to yesterday’s terrorist attack and to what many have called an act of war.” In Baltimore, folklorist Rory Turner, program director for the Maryland State Arts Council, has already heeded the call (see “Just for the Record,” by Ste­ phanie Shapiro, The Baltimore Sun, September 21, 2001, pp. E–1 and E–5). At a Chinese food and barbecue stand in the city, for example, Turner spoke to Doug­ las H. Strachan, pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, who was happy to share his thoughts: “You can’t let your hatred for one nation and one people destroy “Remember the Lost.” Poster on the wall at Arlington National Cemetery. your belief in humanity.” Photo by James Hardin, September 19, 2001 4 Folklife Center News A Spontaneous Memorial Near the Pentagon

In the weeks following the September 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, a collection of so-called makeshift memo­ rials were constructed on a grassy slope nearby. Photo by David A. Taylor, September 19, 2001

By Mary Hufford are calling a “makeshift memo­ There are two components to rial” is growing. On a plot of the memorial. One is a wall In the days following the crash grass and trees at the conjunc­ superimposed on the iron and of American Airlines Flight 77 tion of highly administered masonry fence that forms the into the Pentagon, scores of worlds, facing the site of physi­ southeastern boundary of visitors have converged on a cal impact, signs of impacts Arlington Cemetery. Dynamic space just to the west in order that are spiritual, emotional, and interactive, the wall is made to view the scorched and gap­ and psychological pile up. This of posters, flags, photographs of ing hole in the Pentagon. In spontaneous public display—a victims, bouquets of flowers this space, at the juncture of profusion of symbols, images, tucked between the bars, bright­ Columbia Pike, Southgate tokens, words, and events— ly variegated chains of origami Road, and Joyce Street, where marks a space of public dis­ birds, and messages of grief, the boundaries of Arlington course on the recent attacks, a consolation, patriotism, and sol­ National Cemetery, the Navy discourse embodying at once idarity. Molten wax from vigil Annex, and the Pentagon itself the logic of tribute, testimony, candles accumulates on the do not quite meet, what some memorial, and vigil. stone foundation anchoring the Fall 2001 5 American Esta Con Los Her­ manos de U.S.A.”; on another, “The Cambodian Community Against Terror­ ism prays to the victims.” A mes­ sage from the Sudanese Voice for Freedom reads: “As refugees who have found home in this country we stand in solidar­ ity with this great nation to denounce and fight terror- ism.” Brightly colored fabric squares flutter A proliferation of American flags dot the landscape across a street from the Pentagon and near from parallel Arlington National Cemetery. Photos by David A. Taylor, September 19, 2001 strings on the cemetery fence, fence, along with teddy bears, Messages of condolence and each inscribed with a text in ceramic figures, and vari- support tether the site to coun- what appears to be Sanskrit, and ous other tokens, including tries all over the world. On one illustrated with an image of the pens, which visitors may use poster is written: “God Bless Buddha. Amid the flowers, plas­ to add their own inscriptions. America: El Pueblo Latino tic fire helmets, and flags, a pro- The other is a spreading array of flow­ ers, wreaths, candles, and funeral pro­ grams, across Southgate Road, on the lawn below the Navy An­ nex. Displays cluster around trees and hang from branch­ es, incorporat­ ing photos, flags, and air­ planes. A man­ hole cover in the grass forms a cen­ ter for me­ mentos, can­ dles, and potted pan­ sies, arranged there by a grieving cou­ ple.

6 Folklife Center News Detail of a memorial tribute constructed on and near a tree. Photo by David A. Taylor gram from a funeral service held from this structure, is a newly ing the impress of human bod­ at St. Columba’s Church reads: released list of Pentagon work­ ies: stripes made of children’s “A Celebration of the Life of ers who died in the attack. footprints, stars made of hand­ Karen Ann Kincaid, November Around the list, tributes gather: prints. Seated on a blanket, Jus­ 30, 1960–September 11, 2001.” an offering of baked goods, a tine Smith, of Centreville, and The display changes con­ poem lamenting the lost spaces Jenny Riley, of Mt. Airy, make stantly. In the second week, a of the Pentagon by one who had pins of red, white, and blue written complaint is posted helped maintain them, a funeral yarn, which they hand out to vis­ against a cemetery official for program affixed to the frame itors. They accept donations in a the removal of the previous with duct tape, a fireman pup­ box marked “Red Cross.” On the week’s signs (some of which pet, a dozen or so vigil candles, curb where the lawn meets may not have withstood a heavy some wrapped in handwritten Columbia Pike, a man views the rain). But new signs already fill messages. People cluster around breach in the Pentagon wall the space. On the wall is a U.S. this frame, reading and com­ through binoculars that he then flag made by friends of Bernard menting: “This guy right here passes to a friend. “It takes your Curtis Brown, an eleven-year- worked in our office,” a man breath away, doesn’t it?” he old boy from Leckie Elementary standing next to me says, touch­ says, shaking his head. School in southeast Washington. ing the name. “Tall, red-headed Visitor seems an inadequate Bernard Brown was one of three guy. Really nice fellow.” Can­ term for those who come to this D.C. students who had won an dles everywhere are flickering, memorial. Why do they come award from The National Geo­ some extinguished by wind and into this space piling up with graphic Society for scholastic wax. Later that day two girls stories? To connect with what achievement, a trip to Califor­ from Centreville would relight has happened? To face and undo nia. All three students were on all of them. the isolating effects of terror­ board flight 77. The red stripes Visitors merge with and ani­ ism? To give and receive signs of on the flag are made of the hand­ mate the display, in star-span- the continuing possibility of prints of classmates. gled T-shirts, red-white-and- democracy and peace? We On the lawn a large wooden blue hats and bandanas, and remember, we pay tribute, we bulletin board has appeared, flags protruding from ponytails. keep vigil in a place that can no inviting inscriptions from visi­ Like the flag made for Bernard longer be merely for passing tors. In a large frame, downhill Curtis, other flags appear bear­ through. Fall 2001 7 Storytelling Pavilion Featured at National Book Festival

Folklife Center Director Peggy Bulger (right) inter viewed Navajo code-talkers Keith Little, shown here, and Sam Smith. The code-talkers provided an invaluable ser vice during World War II, in sending and receiving highly classified strategic messages composed in a code developed from the Navajo language. The code was never broken by the enemy.

By James Hardin works. They crowded into pavil­ Foundation International, based ions on the east lawn of the U.S. in Jonesborough, Tennessee, On September 8, a sunny, peace­ Capitol, across the street from and the president of that organi­ ful Saturday on Capitol Hill, the Library of Congress, and zation, Jimmy Neil Smith, was nearly sixty authors participat­ lined up in the Jefferson and present to introduce Carmen ed in the first National Book Fes­ Madison buildings and on the Deedy, one of the performers tival, sponsored by the Library sidewalks outside to have their featured in the collection (see of Congress and hosted by First books signed. Folklife Center News, summer Lady Laura Bush. An estimated And at one pavilion, the 2001). twenty-five to thirty thousand American Folklife Center pre­ There is, of course, a close enthusiastic readers (both sented one of the more popular connection between traditional adults and children) attended programs of the day, especially storytelling and the book. Many the event, to listen to David for the children—ten story­ novelists, for example, refer to McCullough, George Will, Liz tellers, representing different themselves as storytellers and Carpenter, Scott Turow, Robin regional and cultural traditions. publishers know that most best- Cook, Gail Goodwin, Gary Soto, The Center has acquired the col­ sellers, fiction or nonfiction, and many others read from their lections of the Storytelling achieve that status because they 8 Folklife Center News tell a good story. The connection Sheila Kay Adams, along is also memorialized in the with her husband, Jim Taylor, Library of Congress. In the East Mars Hill, Nor th Carolina, Corridor of the Great Hall of the beautifully evoked time and Library’s historic Thomas Jef­ place with her stories and ferson Building are six panels ballads from Appalachia. illustrating the evolution of the book, with the final panel repre­ senting the invention of the printing press. The first panel in the series shows a rude memori­ al cairn, and the second panel is devoted to oral tradition.

Nilimma Devi, of Silver Spring, Maryland, told and performed East Indian folk tales that were then acted out by her troupe of dancers. Dance provides a mar velous vehicle fo r stor ytelling, par ticular ly when it involves strange and magical characters and events.

Derek Burrows , Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, ended the day with stories of life in America for an immigrant from the Caribbean Islands. To his left, an American sign-lan- guage interpreter translates. As with many of the per­ formances of the day, Burrows’s sto­ ries were both strange and famil­ iar, moving and funny.

Ron and Natalie Daise, of Beaufor t, South Carolina, performed songs and stories from the South Carolina Sea Islands, providing an oppor tunity for Washington-area children to experience the folklore of another region of the countr y. Fall 2001 9 Save Our Sounds Preserves Audio Treasures from the Folk Archive

Working on the Save Our Sounds preservation project, Archivist Marcia Segal examines an acetate disc in its origi­ nal sleeve, one of 416 discs in the Eloise Hubbard Linscott Collection. The sleeves provide invaluable information about the recordings, including the song title, the performer’s name, the date and location where the recording was made, and sometimes fieldnotes. The sleeves will be digitized, along with the sound recordings, manuscript mate­ rial, and photographs, and made available to researchers. Photo by James Hardin

By Michael Taft Since then, ethnographers have Yet this same storehouse is preserved the voices and per­ imperilled to a much great­ The use of sound-recording formances of countless people er extent than the writ­ equipment in ethnographic from virtually all the world’s ten and printed records of the fieldwork has been part of folk- cultures, and this international past because of the nature of life research for well over a hun­ effort has yielded a rich store­ sound recording. While paper dred years. In fact, the American house of information far sur­ can last for centuries if properly Folklife Center holds J. Walter passing in quantity and quality treated and stored, no medi­ Fewkes’s wax cylinders of mem­ the written ethnographic um for capturing sound has bers of the Passamaquoddy descriptions and folklore collec­ such a shelf-life, and in most tribe, which he recorded in 1890. tions from previous centuries. cases is considerably more frag- 10 Folklife Center News make them models for future operations. The James Madison Carpenter Collection includes 179 cylinders and over 200 acetate discs that Carpenter recorded in his fieldwork in Britain and the southern United States in the 1930s and 1940s, and is a highly valuable collec­ tion of ballads, sea chanteys, game songs, dance tunes, and mumming plays that have been virtually inaccessible for sixty years. The Eloise Hubbard Lin­ scott Collection represents the life’s work of one of the group of early and mid twentieth-centu- ry New England folksong collec­ tors who helped to establish a canon of American folklore. Save Our Sounds will preserve 400 of Linscott’s acetate discs Library of Congress 2001 Junior Fellows John Vallier, Ph.D. candidate at the and 50 open-reel tapes. University of California, and T. Christopher Aplin, master’s candidate at the In the 1950s, folklorist Don University of Oklahoma, in the Center’s processing and digital conversion Yoder used a wire recorder to area. The two ethnomusicologists helped with various processing and document the songs, narratives, preser vation projects during the summer, including the American Dialect and dialect of Pennsylvania Ger­ Society Collection. Photo by James Hardin mans. The hair-thin stainless- steel-wire spools in his collec­ ile and difficult to archive than Center News, winter 2001), and tion represent one of the more paper. one of the responses to these transient technologies used by Adding to the difficulties of concerns is the Save Our Sounds ethnographers, and machines preserving sound recordings is preservation project, a joint pro­ and technicians who can work the fact that all such media gram of the American Folklife them are few and far between. require some mechanical inter­ Center and Smithsonian’s Cen­ Luckily, the Library of Congress mediary. Information on paper ter for Folklife and Cultural has the expertise and facilities is immediately available to our Heritage. As part of the Save for playing and transferring eyes; information on a sound America’s Treasures Program of wire recordings, so that Yoder’s recording must be “interpreted” the National Trust for Historic early work—a total of 32 by a machine before it reaches Preservation, administered by spools—will be made accessible our ears. If the recording is the National Park Service, Save to researchers. intact and playable, the problem Our Sounds will restore, pre­ In the 1930s, the American remains: do we have the proper serve, and make accessible 8,000 Dialect Society embarked on a machine on which to play that endangered sound recordings project to record language sam­ particular recording? How held by the American Folklife ples from New Englanders. The many folklorists have access to a Center and the Center for Folk- result was 880 instantaneous cylinder machine, for example, life and Cultural Heritage. aluminum discs of people talk­ or the expertise to play a wax These recordings are only a ing about their lives, their com­ cylinder? The same question small selection of approximate­ munities, and their traditions— might be asked about instanta­ ly 140,000 sound recordings an invaluable collection of neous acetate discs, wire record­ held by both centers, but Save speakers who grew up in the ings, and even open-reel tape— Our Sounds marks a good begin­ nineteenth century. The collec­ all media used by fieldworkers ning towards the kind of com­ tion of the Storytelling Founda­ before the advent of audiocas­ mitment that faces all ethno­ tion International of Jonesbor­ sette field recorders in the 1970s. graphic archives and individual ough, Tennessee, contains over Will future technologies make collectors. 6,000 open-reel tapes, cassettes, cassettes, CDs, and DAT tapes DAT tapes, and videotapes doc­ equally inaccessible? And will he American Folklife umenting almost thirty years of these types of sound recording Center has begun the the annual National Storytelling resist degradation any better project with seven of its Festival, as well as other foun­ than their predecessors? collections—each valu­ dation activities, and demo These questions were raised Table in its own right, and each tapes (see Folklife Center News, at the Folk Heritage Collections presenting problems of restora­ summer 2001, pp. 3–5). By far, in Crisis symposium (see Folklife tion and preservation that will this is the largest collection of Fall 2001 11 folk-narrative-revival material ach of these collections the project hopes to avoid the in the country, and the Save Our presents different chal­ pitfalls of using yet another gen­ Sounds Project will preserve lenges in audio (and eration of essentially unstable around 1,000 of the most endan­ video) restoration, preser­ media—digital compact discs. gered sound recordings in this Evation, and access. Some will be The shelf-life and future play­ collection. treated in facilities at the Li­ ability of CDRs is not known, In 1966 and 1967 the Doris brary of Congress, while others but files on a server can be peri­ Duke Oral History Project spon­ will be sent to off-site sound labs odically checked for degrada­ sored the American West Center that specialize in old audio for­ tion and refreshed, and can be of the University of Utah in its mats. But all will undergo cer­ more easily migrated to future collection of 222 tapes from tain basic processes. Each item digital forms than can CDRs. nineteen Zuni narrators.These will be inspected for deteriora­ WAVE files will also generate tapes contain epic-length tales tion and treated appropriately, compressed files that can be told in the Zuni language, and whether repairing cracks in quickly accessed by computers form part of the extensive body cylinders, snarls in wire, dirt and allow multimedia computer of Native American material and chemical ooze on discs, or presentations of the Save Our held at the Library of Congress. notorious “sticky-shed syn­ Sounds collections. The digital Their preservation nicely com­ drome” on 1970s tape. Each item presentation of these collections plements the non-Save Our will then be transferred to 1/4- is one aim of the project, but this Sounds project to restore the inch analog preservation tape— aim requires more work than the Densmore cylinders of Native the current standard for archival preservation and transfer of American material (see Folklife preservation. But this standard sound recordings. Almost all of Center News, summer 2001, pp. is undergoing revision as we the earmarked collections con­ 6–13). Another collection to be enter the age of digitalization, tain material besides record­ treated is Eleanor Dickinson’s and the project will also produce ings. For example, the Linscott 169 open-reel video recordings electronic copies of each item. It and Carpenter collections each documenting Holiness music, is in the area of digitization that contain thousands of pages of sermons, glossolalia, and the Save Our Sounds is doing its manuscript material and hun­ practice of snake-handling in most pioneering work. Instead dreds of photographs. The aim Appalachia. This collection is of digitizing onto CDRs (a prac­ of Save Our Sounds is to present the only one targeted by Save tice of many archives), this proj­ manuscript and photographic Our Sounds that tackles the par­ ect will produce WAVE files that materials alongside the record­ ticular problems of preserving will be stored on one of the ings in an integrated digital early open-reel videotape. Library’s servers. In this way, presentation that replicates as closely as possible the physical presentation of the original items in the collection. For example, a researcher will be able to read correspondence or field notes in the Linscott collec­ tion while viewing photographs and listening to sound record­ ings. In an in-house pilot ver­ sion of a digital presentation, digitized versions of two of Yoder’s wire spools are avail­ able on selected Library hard drives, along with a detailed index of each spool, and a photo­ graph of a spool box (since few will have seen this type of medi­ um). The creation of such a multi­ media digital display requires much planning, and involves a great deal of data entry. To this end, Save Our Sounds is using a Julia Bishop (left), of the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield, visits the Library’s Special Formats Lab with Center database, created by the Motion reference specialist Jennifer Cutting, to examine specimens of the 179 Dic­ Picture, Broadcasting and taphone cylinders in the James Madison Carpenter Collection slated for Recorded Sound Division of the restoration and new transfers. Bishop is coordinating a team of U.K. schol­ Library of Congress, that is ars working to create an online catalog of the Carpenter Collection, and designed specifically to capture spent two weeks in Washington to coordinate a work plan with the Save Our information for digital presen­ Sounds project staff. Photo by James Hardin tation. This database allows the

12 Folklife Center News Archivist Marcia Segal holds the “association copy” of Eloise Linscott’s book Folk Songs of Old New England (that is, the author’s own, annotated copy). This unique item has Lin- scott’s handwritten notes, additions and corrections, and photos she took of performers whose work appears in the book. It provides evidence that Linscott planned a new edi­ tion of the book, perhaps as early as the 1940s. Photo by James Hardin the specifications through with care. Not every of the digitization. ethnographic archive, and cer­ These data give a tainly few individuals, will have complete history the resources to replicate the of the transfer of Save Our Sounds Project, but the the original item kinds of work carried out at the to a digital item, as American Folklife Center might well as presenting be seen as “best practice” that online informa­ others can follow in part, if not tion that accompa­ in whole. nies the sounds Among its several aims, and images repre­ therefore, Save Our Sounds senting the ar­ intends to act as a model, and to chived collection. help build up an expertise at the The entire pro­ American Folklife Center that cess is a long and can then be shared with others. complex one. Each This consultative function is collection requires already underway in formal and a committee to informal ways (for example, oversee the pro­ with the American Folklife Cen- cess and make ter’s Veteran’s History Project, decisions on how the Vermont Folklife Center, and project to relate the sound to represent sound, text, and the Western Folklife Center). All recording to its accompanying image in a digital way. The ethnographic collections will material (manuscripts and pho­ restoration and transfer of the have to face the inevitability of tographs), and includes detailed sound recordings, and the scan­ the deterioration of their sound bibliographical data on each ning of manuscripts and photo­ recordings, and all will need item: performer(s), place of graphs, require meticulous guidelines for preservation. If recording, title of performance, attention and involve special­ the last hundred years have been etc. This same database also ized skills and costly equip­ the time of great accumulations records the procedures used to ment. Data entry—including of recorded sound, then the next restore and transfer the sound decisions on how data should be century will perhaps be the time recordings, noting details such entered—is also an arduous part of establishing reliable proce­ as the condition of the original of the work. All this is to say that dures for making sure that item, treatments used in restora­ digitization is not a simple task sound recordings remain pre­ tion, equipment employed, and and, therefore, must be thought served and accessible.

he Save Our Sounds Project requires private matching funds to gain access to the fed­ eral portion of the grant. Donations have come in from across the country, but the proj­ ect still needs support in order to continue its work. The American Folklife Center Twould like to thank the following individual and corporate donors: Ted Anthony Ann Green Dorothy E. Beck IBM Employee Matching Fund Sheila M. and William C. Benson John W. and Clara C. Higgins Foundation Elaine Bradke Catherine H. Kerst Country Dance and Song Society, Inc. Daniel J. Mick Dance Perspectives Foundation Elizabeth R. Milner EMTEC Pro Media Anne S. O’Donnell Gerald and Mary Swope Fund Mark F. Pretzat Ross S. Gersten Nancy G. Schaub Grammy Foundation Robert Young Walser Judith Gray Michael R. and Sharon K. Wildermuth

Fall 2001 13 “Explore Your Community” Free Heritage Poster Available to Teachers for Classroom Use

In cooperation with the Rural School and Community Trust, and with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the American Folklife Center has produced a poster entitled “Ex­ plore Your Community,” de­ signed for middle school and high school students. The poster encourages students to learn more about their own communi­ ties by engaging in documenta­ tion projects. On the back of the poster are suggestions for her­ itage studies and community projects, such as interviewing friends and classmates about school-related traditions and developing a walking tour of a historic neighborhood. The Folklife Center and the Rural Trust hope that students will want to explore and docu­ ment a wide range of living cul­ tural expressions in their fami­ lies, schools, neighborhoods, and towns and cities. The poster and full text, along with a list of resources for conducting com­ munity heritage projects, may be viewed online at www.loc.gov/ folklife/poster. The “Explore Your Commu­ nity” poster is in full color, 22 x 34 inches, and available free of charge from the Library of Con­ gress, American Folklife Center, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. Email [email protected].

14 Folklife Center News Senator’s Artistry Part of Archive of Folk Culture

Sen. Robert C. Byrd on the stage of the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, December 1977. Photo by Carl Fleischhauer

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (left), of West Virginia, accepts from the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, new cassette copies of fiddle recordings the senator made at the Library of Congress in the late 1970s. Senator Byrd recorded over seven hours of tradi­ tional fiddle music for the American Folklife Center’s Archive of Folk Culture, a growing collection that now holds over 2 million items. Photo courtesy of the Office of Senator Robert Byrd

EDITOR’S NOTES from page 2 opposite. There is this need we on the Library’s first National feel to give form to our grief, Book Festival and the Center’s they carried aloft through the anger, and frustration, whether Save Our Sounds preservation crowd. There were spontaneous in the making of a poster or the heritage project. Now, with the singings of “The Star-Spangled telling of a story. September 11, 2001, Documen­ Banner.” The Center will collect the tary Project, the Center will fol­ Along the fence surrounding documentation of these sponta­ low the lead of Alan Lomax, Arlington National Cemetery neous forms of expression. Like from sixty years ago, and collect and on a grassy slope overlook­ so many others, we feel an documentation of reactions to ing the site where a hijacked impulse to do what we can do, to the terrorists’ attack upon plane crashed into the Pentagon, do something. . . . America. In telling our stories American flags dot a landscape we say who we are as a people; in of memorials constructed to Telling Our Stories, Saving saving our sounds we convey honor friends and loved ones. Our Sounds this knowledge to the future. Photographs, inscriptions, and mementos such as teddy bears By coincidence, articles sched­ and toy airplanes put a human uled for the fall issue of Folklife face on the anonymous damage Center News included reports

Fall 2001 15 Near the end of the day, at the Library of Congress’s first National Book Festival, a tired but happy staff relaxes at the base of a tree on the east lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Left to right: Thea Austen, the Folklife Center’s special events coordinator, and stage manager for the Storytelling Pavilion; Craig D’Ooge, public affairs specialist for the Library of Congress; and Jennifer Cutting and Todd Harvey, folklife specialists at the Center. Story on page 8.

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