CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by IUScholarWorks ARCHIVING CULTURE: AMERICAN FOLKLORE ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Andy Kolovos Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University October 2010 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee Gregory Schrempp, Ph.D. Moira Smith, Ph.D. Sandra Dolby, Ph.D. James Capshew, Ph.D. September 30, 2010 ii © 2010 Andrew Kolovos ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii For my Jenny. I couldn’t have done it without you. iv Acknowledgements First and foremost I thank my parents, Lucy and Demetrios Kolovos for their unfaltering support (emotional, intellectual and financial) across this long, long odyssey that began in 1996. My dissertation committee: co-chairs Greg Schrempp and Moira Smith, and Sandra Dolby and James Capshew. I thank you all for your patience as I wound my way through this long process. I heap extra thanks upon Greg and Moira for their willingness to read and to provide thoughtful comments on multiple drafts of this document, and for supporting and addressing the extensions that proved necessary for its completion. Dear friends and colleagues John Fenn, Lisa Gabbert, Lisa Gilman and Greg Sharrow who have listened to me bitch, complain, whine and prattle for years. Who have read, commented on and criticized portions of this work in turn. Who have been patient, supportive and kind as well as (when necessary) blunt, I value your friendship enormously. The Vermont Folklife Center, for providing me with a livelihood, laboratory and a platform from which I can explore my interests in this topic. Jane Beck, for rescuing me, mentoring me and supporting my work. Brent Björkman for continuing this tradition, and for his flexibility and willingness to let me adjust my work schedule so I could actually get this thing done. v Steve Green, because he’s awesome and because so many of my ideas on folklore archives seem to resonate with his, which much mean I’m on the right track here. Marjorie Tsurikov, the ace transcriptionist. Professional mentors and senior colleagues Robert Baron, Inta Carpenter, Janet Gilmore, Debora Kodish, Tim Lloyd, Tony Seeger, Michael Taft, Sue Tuohy, and Lynne Williamson for supporting, reading, talking and listening to my thoughts and ideas over the years. Fellow archivists and information professionals Jennifer Cutting, Nathan Georgitis, Judith Gray, Cathy Kerst, Maggie Kruesi, Marcia Maguire, Suzanne Mudge, Jodi Perkins, Nicki Saylor, Marcia Segal, Rhonda Sewald, Randy Williams and Kristi Young. Everyone who took the time to sit for interviews or correspond with me, including many of the above as well as Todd Harvey, Ellen McHale and John Laudun, and Steve Zeitlin. The member organizations of PACT, Preserving Americas Cultural Traditions, for welcoming me into their offices, and at times homes, as I surveyed collections for the GRAMMY Foundation funded PACT Archive Survey Project. Special thanks to Betsy Peterson of the Fund for Folk Culture for administering the PACT Archival Survey Project. vi Jiwon Choi, Debbie Hecht, Sarah Nankin, Rosie Schaap and all my other dear ones in New York City. Those who have passed on, including Frank Duba, because he was a good man, a fine scholar, an excellent cook and I miss him; Owen Wolf, because he should have been here to see this; My grandmother, Phillipa Lopa, because I miss her everyday; and Richard Tristman, who as a college freshman first got me thinking about language, history, and ideas. UVM Friends, including Liz Fenton, Emily Manetta, Elizabeth Smith and Jonah Steinberg. Rob Keith, Louise Moon Rosales, Paul Toth, Lexapro and Prozac. Last and most importantly, Dr. Jennifer Ann Dickinson, my wife, my love, my best friend, and my role model. I love you, Jenny. And Thalia and Zora, our kids, who have had to put up with a lot from me, even though they’re still really little. vii Andy Kolovos ARCHIVING CULTURE: AMERICAN FOLKLORE ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE American folklorists have long preserved their research materials in repositories dedicated to this purpose. The motivations for saving these items and the methods of doing so have changed over time, but the practice of preserving research materials has persisted as a central aspect of folkloristics into the present—one that distinguishes it from other ethnographic disciplines such as anthropology. Although these collections go by many names—including folk archives, folklife archives, and ethnographic archives—for the sake of this dissertation I label these collections categorically as folklore archives. Issues related to intellectual property rights and intangible cultural heritage, while important to consider, are beyond the scope of this project. Despite the ubiquity of folklore archives in the discipline, they are an understudied aspect of historical and contemporary practice in folkloristics. This dissertation examines the role of folklore archives in the field, the nature of these collections, and the growing influence on them from theories and practices originating in the fields of library science and archival management. Folklore archives were at one time a distinct product of the discipline of folkloristics, reflecting disciplinary practice and responding to disciplinary need. As theoretical and methodological approaches within the field changed, the utility of these old archival forms diminished dramatically. Rather than abandoning the creation of archives all together, folklorists began to modify archival practice to suit changing needs. Of particular viii significance is the impact of the requirements of public folklore work on folklore archives, including the reuse and repurposing of archival materials in publications, exhibitions and public events, as well as an increased emphasis on collaborative engagement with communities of origin. Folklore archives in the present are increasingly shaped by the theories and methods of professionally trained archivists. Folklore archives are developing into a hybrid form that draws on both the legacy of archiving in folkloristics and aspects of the well-developed body of theory that informs the work of professional archivists outside of folklore. ix Table of Contents Introduction..........................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Roles of the Folklore Archive .......................................................22 Chapter Two: Contextualizing the Archives: An Introduction to Archival Theory for Non-Archivists ................................................................................................99 Chapter Three: Reformulating the Folklore Archive, 1967-1998......................125 Chapter Four: Diachronic Perspectives on the Folklore Archive: An Examination of the Work of George List and Gerald Parsons................................................155 Chapter Five: When is an Archives not an Archives? Folklore Archives as Current Records ................................................................................................177 Conclusion .......................................................................................................233 References .......................................................................................................242 Appendix ..........................................................................................................255 x Introduction Personally I found it extraordinarily cheering and stimulating to learn that the archiving of folklore is a very special and thrilling activity and is not the dull detection of dead things. I know there may be questions and comments on this. (Maude Karpeles in Thompson 1976(1958):93-94.) This dissertation explores the history and legacy of folklorists in the United States preserving their accumulated research materials across the twentieth and twenty- first centuries. The reasons for saving these items and the methods of doing so have changed over the course of the last century. These changes are linked to the ongoing negotiation of the disciplinary boundaries of the field of folkloristics, and related changes in research methods employed by folklorists since the foundation of the field. In the following pages I will examine these willful accumulations—as they appeared in the past and as they continue to emerge in the present. I undertake this exploration for several reasons. My dual training in archives and folkloristics has provided me with a distinct perspective on my work as a folklorist and on folklore archives in particular. Over eight years of employment as the archivist of the Vermont Folklife Center, a non-profit public folklore organization in Middlebury, Vermont, has given me first hand experience with generational and operational differences in the way folklorists accumulate and manage their archival collections. Through consulting work undertaken as an employee of the Vermont Folklife Center I have been privileged to visit folklore archives created by public and academic folklorists across the United States and in Canada, 1 further broadening my exposure to the diverse forms folklore archives take, and providing opportunities for first-hand observation and interaction with folklore archives and their creators and managers. Finally, as a