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Transcription: [00:04:00]
{SPEAKER name="Tom Vennumm"}
major cantons in the country. And in Austria I also was working with a folklorist from Innsbruck, Wolfgang [[Taundler]].
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We put together a pretty good representation there. I
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can't really remember what came from Germany that summer because Germany had been there the summer before and I think we were still using some of the fieldwork from that but [00:04:23]
I think that by the experience of the '76 festival, Ralph in the meantime had encouraged me to develop some film material that I had done with some former students of mine, and
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this kind of launched the--what is now the Smithsonian Folklife Studies, which is a film monograph series that we've gotten maybe 7 or 8 volumes of monographs and accompanying documentation on film and video. So I decided to stay!
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{SPEAKER name="Polly Stewart (interviewer)"}
Sounds as though it has fulfilled your expectations.
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{SPEAKER name="Tom Vennumm"}
Well, I--the Smithsonian is such a pleasure to work in, I mean you've got from a standpoint of research you've got everything at your fingertips, at least, since my specialty is in Native American culture and music specifically,
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between the National Anthropological Archives and the Anthropology Library, and
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material that's in the American History Museum and what's at the Library of Congress, supplementing that with fieldwork which I've done systematically, it has enabled me to write three books and get them published in all those years.

{SPEAKER name="Polly Stewart (interviewer)"}
It's really wonderful support,

{SPEAKER name="Tom Vennumm"}
Yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Polly Stewart (interviewer)"}
Excellent support. What was it about your early experiences of folklorist or your training as a folklorist, that made you attractive to these programs so that Ralph would invite you?
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{SPEAKER name="Tom Vennumm"}
Well, I think ah
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