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Collections & Research Services: The Archive of Folk Culture
The Archive of Folk Culture mainly consists
of the collections of the American Folklife Center. It was originally founded
as the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library in 1928. In 1978 it
became part of the American Folklife Center and was subsequently renamed
the Archive of Folk Culture. Today the Archive includes over three million
photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings, and moving images. It consists
of documentation of traditional culture from all around the world including
the earliest field recordings made in the 1890s on wax cylinder through
recordings made using digital technology. It is America's first national
archive of traditional life, and one of the oldest and largest of such
repositories in the world.
To read more about the history of the Archive read "The Archive of Folk Culture at 75: A National Project with Many Workers," [PDF: 1.52MB / 16 p.], by James Hardin.
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