Public Folklore Collections in the Upper Midwest poster

Janet C. Gilmore, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Nicole Saylor, University of Iowa

Abstract

Public folklorist have generated a wealth of ethnographic documents since the 1970s through thousands of folk arts and folklife projects. Funded from the commons, they have depended on the “common wealth” of traditional artists and communities, and emphasized, for the common good, subsequent public productions. Digital age techniques afford ways to enhance the public investment in this work and renew common access to these documentary resources. Folklorists in the Upper Midwest have used these tools to identify and locate public folklore collections, and join with colleagues, archivists, and artists to record project histories, catalog materials, and enliven preservation issues.