Saturday, October 15

09-04 Acquisitioning Data or Preserving a Life’s Work: How Folklorists and Archivists Negotiate the Preservation of Folklore [hybrid]

Saturday, October 15, 2:30 pm–4:30 pm
Promenade B

  session will be recorded and available for later viewing online

Sponsored by the Archives and Libraries Section


Chair: M. Rachel Gholson (Missouri State University)

Forum participants:

David R. Lewis (Bowling Green State University)

Lyn Wolz (University of Kansas, emerita)

The forum presenters collectively offer experience homing personal research materials, creating the Ozarks Studies Archive, and working in six archives of North America. For new folklorists the forum offers a brief introduction to the concerns and challenges facing archives and archivists willing to accept research collections. For those looking to house collections and for those presently negotiating acquisitions, the forum offers the opportunity to re-envision ways to facilitate the donation/acquisition process while considering questions like: What should a researcher ask when homing a collection? Would training in archival acquisition at AFS aid folklorists in finding housing for research collections? Are finding aids needed to help connect folklorists with collections to appropriate archives?