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American Folklife Center Annual Report for 2002
Peggy A. Bulger,
Director
American Folklife Center Reorganization and Staff Development
Congressional approval of the American Folklife Center's budget
proposal for Fiscal Year 2002, including the "Folklife Heritage
Preservation and Access Initiative," has enabled the Center to
recruit and develop a strong team of professionals to staff the "Save
Our Sounds" audio preservation project and the Veterans History
Project. In particular, the Center has fully staffed a collections
processing unit for the first time in its history, which has allowed
the Center to address its address its large processing arrearage.
The addition of nine new positions to the staff in the FY 2002
budget and the expansion of programs in areas of acquisition, collection,
management, presentation, and educational outreach necessitated
a review of the administrative structure of the Center and the
subsequent creation of an independent archival section (to be headed
by an administrative librarian) and a stronger administrative support
team. Acquisition, processing, and reference staff will report
to the newly created position head of the Folk Archive, when that
position is filled in Fiscal Year 2003.
Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center held three
meetings at the Library of Congress, November 8-9, 2001; February
28 to March 1, 2002; and June 27-28, 2002; and one meeting in Omaha,
Nebraska, September 26-27, 2002. At the March meeting Kay Kaufman
Shelemay, professor of Music at Harvard University, was elected
chair; and Jane Beck, director of the Vermont Folklife Center,
was elected vice-chair. The board also created the Archie Green
Union, an association of American Folklife Center board members
and former members, as well as other supporters, who will advise
the director and help with fund-raising projects. During the June
meeting the board held an all-day, facilitated retreat at the home
of Andrew Wallace, in Prince George's County, Maryland, to discuss
and begin work on a new strategic plan for the Center, a goals
statement, and a "position description" for board members.
In September the board met in Omaha, hosted by the Nebraska Arts
Council, the Nebraska Humanities Council, the Nebraska State Historical
Society, the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, the Red Willow
Institute, and the John G. Neihardt Foundation. Former board trustee
Charles Trimble coordinated the local arrangements for the meeting.
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, director of the Veterans History Project,
met with the representatives of nine Native American tribes to
discuss their participation in the project.
International Visitors and Meetings
Librarians and cultural specialists from many countries visited
the American Folklife Center this year, including thirteen professors,
librarians, and cultural specialists from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,
Tajikstan, and Georgia; four visitors from Jordan; the cultural
attaché from the Embassy of France, twelve librarians and
American specialists from Russia, a librarian from Sweden; a cultural
specialist from Cyprus; four librarians from Siberia; and an archivist
from South Africa. All have been interested in issues of cultural
heritage, preservation, and archival management. This interest
has been further reflected in international conferences attended
by a number of Center staff: In December 2001, Peggy Bulger traveled
to Beijing, China, to represent the United States at the "International
Symposium on the Protection and Legislation for Traditional/Folk
Culture." In June 2002, Peggy Bulger and Michael Taft attended
the Third Session of the Intergovernmental Committee on "Intellectual
Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore" of
the World International Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva,
Switzerland. In July, Nora Yeh attended a conference on preservation
in Thailand, and Peggy Bulger attended the "First Inter-American
Meeting of Ministers of Culture and Highest Appropriate Authorities," sponsored
by the Organization of American States, in Cartagena, Columbia.
The participants discussed and agreed on a declaration called "Cultural
Diversity, Development, and Globalization: A Perspective of the
Organization of American States." In September, Judith Gray attended
the annual meeting of the International Association of Sound and
Audiovisual Archives in Aarhus, Denmark.
Veterans History Project
On October 27, 2000, the U.S. Congress mandated a new national
collection of oral history accounts of the experiences of America's
war veterans and civilians who supported them. Congress directed
the American Folklife Center to collect interviews on audio and
video tape, as well as other documents, such as letters, photographs,
diaries, and maps (Public Law 106-389). The start-up phase of this
immense undertaking has now been completed, and project staff number
eighteen, including program officers, processing technicians, and
administrative support personnel. Congress provided $250,000 in
the fiscal year 2002 budget for the project, and AARP, as the founding
corporate sponsor, is donating $1 million a year for three years
(2002-2004). The project has also received a donation of $80,000
from the Disabled American Veterans Association.
During the first two years of the project, the principal task
was to build support and gain visibility. On November 8, 2001,
the project held the first meeting of its Five-Star Council, an
advisory body comprising twenty-six notable military and legislative
leaders, including Sen. John Warner, Secretary of Transportation
Norman Mineta, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi,
Sen. Ted Stevens, Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm (USAF-Ret.), Lt. Col. Lee
Archer (Ret.), Stephen Ambrose (now deceased), Tom Brokaw, and
others. Later that day the project held a press briefing, with
reception following, which enabled many on the Five-Star Council
to speak publicly on their enthusiastic support of the project.
The Washington Post, Washington Times, and many other newspapers
elsewhere in the country carried Associated Press and other coverage
of this event, linking it in to Veterans Day activities of November
11.
With nearly 19 million living American war veterans, the work
of collecting their stories could not be accomplished without the
help of many individuals and organizations. Every state is represented
among the 450 official partner organizations recruited by the Veterans
History Project (up from 115 in 2001), and the project enjoys a
close working relationship with the Office of Veterans Affairs
and most of the veterans service organizations such as the Veterans
of Foreign Wars (VFW). Project staff are exploring ways of working
with the National Park Service, for example, in creating a presence
at World War II sites around the country. The project is also working
closely with the American Folklore Society and the Oral History
Association on training volunteers to conduct interviews with veterans.
To date, there have been twenty-five workshops in fourteen states.
The Veterans History Project has created, printed, and distributed
approximately one hundred thousand project kits containing guidelines,
sample questions, and release forms for conducting oral history
interviews and contributing material to the project collection.
A toll-free phone number has been established, and project staff
talk to veterans, partner organizations, and interested individuals
every day.
The Veterans History Project's Web site includes the complete
and regularly updated partner list of organizations, an extensive
instruction kit, and information about additional reading. The
site also includes, under "Sights and Sounds," sample clips from
ten interviews, for those with Internet access. To reinforce the
kit, an online course, "Remembrance: Recording Veterans' Oral Histories" was
completed and will be available to the public through "Fathom," beginning
on Veterans Day 2002. Development of the course was supported by
AARP.
The January 2002 AARP Bulletin (one of three AARP member
publications, along with Modern Maturity and My Generation)
published an article on the Veterans History Project, "Preserving
Wartime Memories," by Roberta Yared. There were also short articles
in the Reader's Digest and the Ladies' Home Journal.
On June 6, 2002, there was a program on the deck of the USS
Intrepid, in New York City, attended by about five hundred
people, including many veterans. At the event, there were many
pledges to participate in the project, which received wonderful
coverage in the local and national press. With the help of AARP,
the Veterans History Project has helped to produce a five-minute
promotional video that was duplicated and sent to all partner organizations
and members of Congress. In August, National Public Radio produced
a live-call-in, one-hour program featuring the project, and in
September another station in Denver, Colorado, produced a live
morning program featuring the project's director. Newspaper articles
featuring the Veterans History Project have been published on nearly
a weekly basis, and magazines such as Reunions, VFW magazine,
and others produced by veterans service organizations partnering
with the project promote it with each issue.
Other outreach activities included attendance and presentations
at the July meeting of the Experimental Aircraft Association in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin; the September 12-14 annual meeting of AARP
in San Diego; and the August meeting of the Society of American
Archivists in Birmingham, Alabama.
There were 3,200 project submissions during fiscal year 2002,
a five-fold increase from this time in 2001. Many members of Congress
are involved, and some have organized statewide projects. Sen.
Richard G. Lugar has submitted 500 interviews from Indiana. Many
other members are quietly collecting material on their own. Promotional
mailings to all members of Congress were done before Memorial Day
and Veterans Day. In June, the project began an initiative to interview
all members of Congress who are war veterans. Thus far, Senators
Cleland, Hagel, and Carper, and Representatives Baca, Buyer, Gilman,
Johnson, Kolbe, Pitts, and Schrock have been interviewed.
On May 14, the Veterans History Project unveiled its new searchable-collections
database, which will enable comprehensive tracking of all the documentary
materials received, as well as subject searching. In September,
the project developed the National Registry of Service, recognizing
and honoring participants by listing the names of those who have
oral histories or other documentary materials in the developing
collection. The Registry displays information from the database
that currently has 2,354 entries. Announcement of the Registry
will be a highlight for Veterans Day, November 11, 2002.
September 11, 2001,
Documentary Project
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the American
Folklife Center called upon folklorists and other cultural specialists
across the nation to document on audio tape the thoughts and feelings
expressed by average citizens in reaction to the tragic events
of that day. The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project is modeled
on a similar initiative from sixty years earlier, when Alan Lomax
was serving as the head of the Archive of American Folk Song. On
December 8, 1941, Lomax sent an urgent message to folklorists around
the United States to collect "man on the street" reactions to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war by the United
States.
The Center has received audio-taped interviews and supporting
materials that present the personal experience stories of average
Americans in the wake of the terrorist attack. In addition, the
collection also includes photographic documentation of the memorial
tributes that have sprung up near the Pentagon and at the site
of the World Trade Center disaster. These temporary memorials include
posters, photographs, flowers, flags, and other memorabilia through
which those connected to the disaster victims and others express
their grief and sympathy. These recordings and supporting documentary
materials have become part of the Center's Archive of Folk Culture,
and were used in the Library of Congress exhibit "Witness and Response:
September 11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress," which opened
in the Great Hall on September 7, 2002.
The project was featured in USA Today and the Washington
Post, on NPR's "All Things Considered," on ABC News, and
on numerous local media outlets. In cooperation with the Center
for Documentary Studies in Durham, North Carolina, an hour-long
radio documentary was prepared for broadcast nationwide on NPR
stations, and used for the audio portion of the Library's exhibit.
Save Our Sounds Audio Preservation
Project
Great progress has been made in digitizing the eight collections
that have been selected for the Save Our Sounds audio preservation
project, which was launched in 2000 in conjunction with the Smithsonian
Institution and has been funded by a federal grant from the National
Park Service and matching funds from private individuals and organizations.
The Folklife Center has been engaged in work on all of its earmarked
collections:
Eloise Hubbard Linscott Collection: All intellectual and administrative
data has been entered in the metadata database, over 6,000 manuscript
pages have been scanned, and discs and tapes from the collection
are presently undergoing digital transfer at Cutting Corporation.
American Dialect Society Collection: Virtually all intellectual
and administrative data has been entered in the metadata database,
and all sound recordings and manuscripts have been prepared for
digitization.
Don Yoder Collection: All spools of wire containing sound have
been transferred to analog preservation tape, and two spools, along
with their archival notes and an image of the spool box, have undergone
digitization and now form part of a presentation model. Information
on the collection has now been entered in the metadata database.
International Storytelling Center Collection: Virtually all of
the several thousand sound recordings and manuscript items have
been arranged and described in a database, rehoused, and prepared
for digitization.
James Madison Carpenter Collection: Over 13,000 pages of manuscript
have been numbered, scanned, and data on them recorded in the metadata
database. Work continues on the analog and digital transfer of
the cylinders.
Eleanor Dickinson Collection: Videotapes have been sorted and
descriptive data has been entered into a database. The collection
guide for this collection is undergoing its third revision. Specifications
for analog and digital preservation, and streaming digitization
of the tapes have been set, and the tapes are ready for analog
and digital transfer.
Pearl Harbor Collection: Information on all of the recordings
has been entered in the metadata database. Transcriptions of the
recordings are about half completed. The recordings are presently
being digitized. The entire collection is undergoing the planning
process to become a part of the online American Memory program.
Zuni Storytelling Collection: Preliminary collection description
has been completed and a template for data entry of the recordings
has been constructed.
The project has used or obligated non-federal matching funds as
follows to perform grant-assisted work during the interim reporting
period:
Category |
Library of Congress |
Cash |
$156,492.00 |
Labor and Services |
$0.00 |
Materials |
$0.00 |
Total |
$156,492.00 |
Cumulative Total to Date |
$229,554.00 |
Substantial contributions to the project were made this year by
the Rockefeller Foundation ($250,000), The Arts and Entertainment
Network–History Channel ($25,000), the National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences ($40,000), the Higgins Foundation ($7,000),
and the New Deal Network ($4,465). In addition, private individuals
who contributed a thousand dollars or more include: Peggy Bulger,
Michael Cooney, James Hardin, Peggy Parsons, and Michael Taft.
The Montana Heritage Project and the Salt
River Project
The Center continues its sponsorship of the Montana Heritage Project,
the Center's director serves on the project's governing committee,
and the Center was represented at the annual meeting in Helena,
on September 19. In May, students from the project visited the
Library of Congress and met with the Librarian. Notable among the
community heritage projects conducted this year were several in
which students interviewed World War II veterans, as part of the
Veterans History Project.
In cooperation with the Center, the Salt River Project will conduct
a heritage and education project in Arizona based on the Montana
Heritage Project. The Salt River Project comprises a public utility
that provides electrical power and a private corporation that delivers
water to 700,000 customers in central Arizona. The Salt River Project
has a long history of supporting educational projects, exhibitions,
and other community-based programs. The Salt River project has
donated $50,000 to the American Folklife Center to support its
heritage education outreach programs.
The Ethnographic Thesaurus
A joint project of the American Folklife Center and the American
Folklore Society, with funding from the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the Ethnographic Thesaurus Project seeks to create
a major new reference tool to address the reference needs of archivists
in making multi-format ethnographic materials accessible to researchers.
This year, the project hired a researcher, based at George Mason
University; established a Web site; surveyed potential users; selected
and tested software; and reviewed and enhanced the existing proto-thesaurus.
Acquisitions
The American Folklife Center acquired a number of significant
collections concerning the expressive cultural traditions of the
United States and other countries during FY2002. These collections
include:
The Aaron Ziegelman Foundation Collection, consisting of photographs,
photographic negatives, letters, manuscripts, maps, videotapes,
and ephemera that document a variety of cultural traditions and
aspects of everyday life in the Jewish shtetl of Luboml, Poland,
prior to that community's obliteration during World War II;
The Neil V. Rosenberg Bluegrass Music Collection, consisting of
field sound recordings, fieldnotes, publications, audiotape indexes,
and ephemera that document the unique genre of American traditional
music known as bluegrass;
The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project Collection, consisting
of sound recordings, videotapes, manuscripts, photographs, photographic
negatives, color slides, and ephemera documenting the reactions
of people from around the United States to the events of September
11, 2001.
The Fletcher Collins Manuscript Collection, consisting of correspondence,
musical transcriptions of recordings that he donated to the Folk
Archive in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and other manuscript
materials;
A supplement to the Vida Chenoweth Collection, consisting of field
sound recordings of the traditional music of Papua New Guinea,
along with related fieldnotes, photographs, and musical transcriptions;
The Julie McCullough Collection, consisting of sound recordings,
interview transcripts, and other materials related to the history
of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington;
And a supplement to the Joel M. Halpern Collection, consisting
of field sound recordings, disc recordings, paper-based records,
digitized images and ephemera concerning the traditional cultures
of Alaska, India, Laos, northern Sweden, and the former Yugoslavia.
In addition to these, the Center has acquired 3,200 individual
Veterans History Project collections in connection with that initiative.
These multi-format collections, which represent the first submissions
to the ongoing project, document the experiences of American war
veterans through audiotaped and videotaped oral histories, photographs,
letters, publications, military documents, maps, diaries, journals,
and ephemera collected by a large number of individuals and groups
from around the nation.
Items represented by the above collections:
Sound recordings, non-commercial: 1,866
Photographs: 7,633
Photographic negatives, black and white: 2,185
CDs with images: 109
Motion pictures: 11
Videotapes: 779
Manuscripts: 58,912
Diaries and journals: 73
Maps: 46
Scrapbooks: 18
Ephemera: 142
Processing and Arrearage Reduction
After many years, the Center has created a fully staffed processing
section, and four permanent, full-time processing technicians have
been hired. In the past, the Center has depended upon temporary
and summer help, and the new staff significantly enhances the Center's
arrearage reduction effort. Currently, twenty-four major collections
in the Folk Archive are in various stages of processing, and one
has been completed: the Harold Conklin Collection (manuscripts
and sound recordings from the Philippines). At the Veterans History
Project, 3,210 collections were received and 1,934 were processed
and entered into a multiple access-point database.
Reference
Reference service in the Folklife Reading Room includes responses
to inquiries that come from readers who visit in person, call on
the phone, or send mail, fax, or email requests for information.
In-person and phone requests vary to some extent with the season,
but in the past few years mail-delivered inquiries have declined
while email requests have increased tremendously.
The Folklife Center's participation in the Library's Ask-a-Librarian
program alone accounted for a major increase in email reference
activity. While the emails directed to particular reference librarians
and to the Center's generic account tend to be questions specifically
for the Center, the Web-based emails are more often general and
thus typically require more time to research than questions based
on Center holdings or personal expertise.
The increasing availability of Center collections online led to
an unprecedented number of requests for permissions to use images
or sound files. In cases where such permissions were appropriate,
requesters were able to download the images or sound files directly,
thus eliminating the need for some of the paperwork normally involved
with photo- and phonoduplication procedures. The arrival of the
high-end digital workstation in the Folklife Reading Room made
possible direct access to digitized images for in-process collections,
and pointed the way to the changes that will occur in the coming
years as more and more processed collections will be served to
the public as digitized images or sound files.
Related to the increased visibility of Center collections online,
and to their topical nature, there was an explosion of print and
broadcast media interest in materials from the Pearl Harbor and
the September 11 documentary projects. Consequently, affected reference
staff experienced a major priority shift, reallocating their time
to working with the media in a deadline-oriented, pre-production
capacity. Between the efforts of reference staff and interested
media, Center collections were brought to the attention of millions.
During the year, the two full-time reference staff were trained
and authorized to check-in periodicals sent directly to the Center
on the Integrated Library System; this is a pilot project for localized
serials check-in. In addition, eight American Folklife Center interns
and two volunteers contributed approximately sixteen-hundred hours
of reference and processing work. This year they mainly assisted
with the creation and completion of several finding aids and collection
guides, entered data into specialized collections databases, and
updated several of the Folklife Reading Room's high-demand reference
tools. One major accomplishments was in putting the existing print-only
finding aids in an electronic format and thus making them available
for the Center's Web site.
|
Reference |
Directional |
In-Person |
1,733 |
1,453 |
Telephone Service |
1,512 |
978 |
Email Service |
1,308 |
374 |
Letters, Fax |
191 |
65 |
Web Site Development
The American Folklife Center has created a new Index to Site Contents,
as an aid to navigation, several new sites have been added, including
the "September 11, 2001, Documentary Project," with instructions
and information for project participants and photographs from the
spontaneous memorial near the Pentagon; the "Explore Your Community" poster,
with a list of resources for community heritage studies and suggested
community projects for middle and high school students; "The Day
After the Day Which Will Live in Infamy: 'Man on the Street' Interviews
Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941"; and an
introduction to the Center, along with the text of the American
Folklife Preservation Act, Public Law 94-201. In addition, several
sites were updated: the Veterans History Project; the "Legacy of
Benjamin A. Botkin" program; and the Services to the States pages,
which now include information on American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico,
the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. The following
finding aids were added to Center's Web pages: Arkansas Folklore,
Idaho Field Recordings, Kansas Collections, Mississippi Folk Music
and Folklore, Missouri Field Recordings, and Wisconsin Field Recordings.
The "Services to the States, Trusts, and Territories" pages have
been updated to include links to these finding aids.
Print Publications
A new volume in the Library of Congress series of collection guides, American
Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History
and Culture in the United States, was published in February
by the Library of Congress and the University Press of New England.
James Hardin contributed a chapter on the American Folklife Center.
Four issues of Folklife Center News were published this
year: The fall 2001 issue, with articles on the Center's September
11 Project and an article on the Save Our Sounds project; the winter
2002 issue, with articles on the National Folk Festival, the Veterans
History Project Five-Star Council, the Benjamin A. Botkin program,
and the new Library of Congress guide to the study of American
women; the spring issue, with articles on the National Folk Festival
and the National Council for the Traditional Arts (part 2), the
new "Homegrown 2002" concert series, donation of the Neil Rosenberg
collection of bluegrass music, and the launching of the Archie
Green Union; and the summer 2002 issue, with articles on the "Working
in Paterson" online presentation, the "Save Our Sounds" project,
folksong collector Fletcher Collins, the passing of Alan Lomax,
anthropologist Harold Conklin, and board chair Kay Kaufman Shelemay.
The Center has reprinted its popular heritage education poster "Explore
Your Community," which is once again available free of charge.
Ten thousand copies from the first printing have been distributed.
This poster was produced with support from the U.S. Department
of Education and the Rural School and Community Trust.
Public Programs
November 15-16, 2001: "Living Lore: The Legacy of Benjamin A.
Botkin," two days of concerts, performances, interviews, and panel
discussions. The event was sponsored by the American Folklife Center,
the Center for the Book, the Library's Music Division, the National
Council for the Traditional Arts, and the New York Folklore Society,
with support from the Shakespeare Theatre, and the National Endowment
for the Arts, with transportation provided by U.S. Airways. Speakers
included Roger Welsch, Henry Sapoznik, Alan Jabbour, John Cole,
Peggy Bulger, Ann Banks, Jerrold Hirsch, Joseph Hickerson, and
Steve Zeitlin. There were interviews with decorative painters and
a master mason, conducted by David Taylor and Marjorie Hunt; and
with members of the Shakespeare Theatre, conducted by Nancy Groce.
The United House of Prayer Band, Cherish the Ladies, and a special
ensemble composed of Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger, Peggy Seeger, and
Mike Seeger gave concerts. At the final session on Friday, participants
in the Camp Woodland experience of the 1940s and 1950s shared reminiscences
and held a sing-along. In addition, Botkin was remembered in stories
told by his children, Dan Botkin and Dorothy Rosenthal, and other
members of the audience. Michael Taft and Tom Bramel produced a
short video for the event entitled "Benjamin A. Botkin: In His
Own Words."
December 4, 2001: a reception celebrating "American Roots Music," a
four-part Public Broadcasting Service series exploring the creative
development of America's roots musical traditions in the twentieth
century.
December 5, 2001: an introduction to fieldwork documentation methods
for Library of Congress staff who were interested in interviewing
friends and relatives for the Veterans History Project.
December 10, 2001: an illustrated talk by Todd Harvey on the development
of Bob Dylan's music, based on Harvey's new book The Formative
Dylan: Transmission and Stylistic Influences, 1961-1963.
February 27, 2002: a lecture and slide presentation by Carl Fleischhauer
and Neil Rosenberg on the creation of their new book Bluegrass
Odyssey: A Documentary in Pictures and Words, 1966-86, University
of Illinois Press (2001).
April 24: a concert by Eddie Pennington and his son, Alonzo, along
with Linda and David Lay (of the Appalachian Trail Band) and David
McLaughlin. The concert was introduced by Kentucky state folklorist
Bob Gates.
May 15: Chinese rod puppet theater by the Dragon Arts Studio of
Portland, Oregon. Oregon state folklorist Nancy Nusz introduced
the group.
June 5: the Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Clarence Fountain,
cosponsored by the American Folklife Center and the Music Division,
as part of the Library's "I Hear America Singing" program and the
AFC's Homegrown 2002 concert series. The program was simultaneously
cybercast on the Library's Web site.
June 6: a celebration of the 58th anniversary of D-Day sponsored
by the Veterans History Project on the deck of the USS Intrepid,
now a floating sea-air-space museum docked in the New York City
harbor, to publicize and promote the collecting of veterans' oral
histories for the nationwide project.
June 19: a concert by Karl and the Country Dutchman, a German
Polka band from Wisconsin. Richard March, traditional and ethnic
arts coordinator at the Wisconsin Arts Board, introduced the group.
July 24: a concert by Chuck Brown, the father of DC "go-go" music,
and his band.
August 28: a concert of sacred steel gospel music by the Campbell
Brothers, from Rochester, New York, along with Katie Jackson, from
Baltimore, Maryland. Robert Stone, from the Florida Folklife Program,
introduced the group.
September 10: a concert by singer-songwriter Tom Paxton, one in
the Library's series "Summon the Heroes," commemorations of September
11, 2001.
September 10: an exhibition entitled "Witness and Response: September
11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress" included photographs,
drawings, and sound recordings from the Center's September 11,
2001, Project Collection. The Center for Documentary Studies in
Durham, North Carolina, created an audio presentation for the exhibition,
using the Center's recorded-sound materials. During the week of
September 11, NPR stations around the country broadcast "Days of
Infamy: December 7 and 9/11," a one-hour radio documentary based
on Center's collections of interviews documenting people's reactions
to the events on those two days. The documentary was produced by
the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and American
RadioWorks.
September 19: a concert by National Heritage Fellow Mingo Saldivar,
with his conjunto band from Texas, introduced by Rose Reyes of
Texas Folklife Resources.
Appropriated, Gift, and Trust Funds
American Folklife Center appropriated Fiscal Year 2002 operating
funds provided by the U.S. Congress were $1,819,457, with a current
staff forty-two, twenty-five of whom are full-time employees.
On February 5, 2002, the Parson's Fund Committee held its annual
meeting and elected Ann Hoog to be the chair for 2002. The committee
voted to offer an award for the maximum amount available in the
fund, however, the Library's Budget Office notified the staff that
no money would be available for an award this year, since the amount
of money in the fund (principal) had dropped below the total amount
of donations to the fund.
Through an agreement with 360 Degrees Productions, the Library
has arranged to make payments in the amount of one-half of the
royalties from the sale of CDs in the Endangered Music series to
the performers and communities of origin represented on the CDs.
The money will be paid from the Friends of the Folk Archive Fund.
Gift and Trust Fund Balances
American Folklife Center Fund $49,310
Friends of the Folk Archive
Fund $47,810
Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Fund $21,700
Raye Virginia Allen Fund $44,855
Blanton Owen Fund for Fieldwork $14,961
Gerald and Corinne Parsons
Fund for Ethnography $25,986
Henry Reed Fund for Folk Artists $28,307
Key Personnel Changes
On January 27, John Lewis began work as assistant to the director.
On March 10, Sandra Savage began work as a staff assistant
for the Veterans History Project.
On April 7, Marcia Segal began work as a processing technician.
On April 21, Todd Harvey and Judy Ng began work as processing
technicians.
On May 5, Rosemary Graham began work as a processing technician.
On August 11, Shiela Dyer began work as a processing technician
for the Veterans History Project.
On September 22, Peter Bartis
and Sarah Rouse began work as senior program officers for the
Veterans History Project.
On September 22, Timothy Shurtter
and Taru Spiegel began work as program officers for the Veterans
History Project.
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