1988 SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL: AMERICAN FOLKLORE SOCIETY CENTENNIAL AUDIO LOG SHEETS

About the Project

Audio documentation has played a crucial part in capturing the many stories, performances, exchanges, and demonstrations that have taken place on the National Mall as part of the Festival of American Folklife (now Smithsonian Folklife Festival). For each program, documentation volunteers generated detailed "class style" notes to accompany audio recordings which often include presenter and participant names, subject keywords, song titles, and brief descriptions of the events taking place in real time. These notes are often the richest (or only) source of information about who was present and provide key references for understanding and interpreting the recorded content. While the styles, formats, and spelling accuracy vary across logs, they nevertheless serve as fundamental link between what actually took place and what is documented in audio, photo, and, video formats. It seemed especially appropriate to the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Folklife Programs to help celebrate the American Folklore Society's Centennial. For twenty years the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife had embodied many of the perspectives of the Society's founders: to observe and collect traditional performances and practices of the American peoples; to study this expressive life scientifically; to celebrate the diversity of American culture through presenting publicly the accomplishments of master performers and artisans. During the Festival, visitors could see and sense, in a tent on the National Mall, the living traditions of folklorists themselves - values and practices forged a century ago by pioneers, and now conserved, traditionalized, and elaborated by a new generation of their cultural descendants. More information about the program including participant names can be found here.

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Completed!

Project Progress (details)
113 pages completed
Difficulty
4 out of 5
(details)

81

Contributing
members

113

Total
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