ARCHIVING CULTURE: AMERICAN FOLKLORE ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Andy ...

285 Pages·2010·1.31 MB·English

by  Andrew Kolovos

ARCHIVING CULTURE: AMERICAN FOLKLORE ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND
PRACTICE

Andy Kolovos

Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology,
Indiana University
October 2010
Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Doctoral Committee
Gregory Schrempp, Ph.D.

Moira Smith, Ph.D.

Sandra Dolby, Ph.D.

James Capshew, Ph.D.

September 30, 2010

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© 2010
Andrew Kolovos
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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For my Jenny. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost I thank my parents, Lucy and Demetrios Kolovos for
their unfaltering support (emotional, intellectual and financial) across this long,
long odyssey that began in 1996.
My dissertation committee: co-chairs Greg Schrempp and Moira Smith,
and Sandra Dolby and James Capshew. I thank you all for your patience as I
wound my way through this long process. I heap extra thanks upon Greg and
Moira for their willingness to read and to provide thoughtful comments on multiple
drafts of this document, and for supporting and addressing the extensions that
proved necessary for its completion.
Dear friends and colleagues John Fenn, Lisa Gabbert, Lisa Gilman and
Greg Sharrow who have listened to me bitch, complain, whine and prattle for
years. Who have read, commented on and criticized portions of this work in turn.
Who have been patient, supportive and kind as well as (when necessary) blunt, I
value your friendship enormously.
The Vermont Folklife Center, for providing me with a livelihood, laboratory
and a platform from which I can explore my interests in this topic. Jane Beck, for
rescuing me, mentoring me and supporting my work. Brent Björkman for
continuing this tradition, and for his flexibility and willingness to let me adjust my
work schedule so I could actually get this thing done.

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Steve Green, because he’s awesome and because so many of my ideas
on folklore archives seem to resonate with his, which much mean I’m on the right
track here.
Marjorie Tsurikov, the ace transcriptionist.
Professional mentors and senior colleagues Robert Baron, Inta Carpenter,
Janet Gilmore, Debora Kodish, Tim Lloyd, Tony Seeger, Michael Taft, Sue
Tuohy, and Lynne Williamson for supporting, reading, talking and listening to my
thoughts and ideas over the years.
Fellow archivists and information professionals Jennifer Cutting, Nathan
Georgitis, Judith Gray, Cathy Kerst, Maggie Kruesi, Marcia Maguire, Suzanne
Mudge, Jodi Perkins, Nicki Saylor, Marcia Segal, Rhonda Sewald, Randy
Williams and Kristi Young.
Everyone who took the time to sit for interviews or correspond with me,
including many of the above as well as Todd Harvey, Ellen McHale and John
Laudun, and Steve Zeitlin.
The member organizations of PACT, Preserving Americas Cultural
Traditions, for welcoming me into their offices, and at times homes, as I surveyed
collections for the GRAMMY Foundation funded PACT Archive Survey Project.
Special thanks to Betsy Peterson of the Fund for Folk Culture for administering
the PACT Archival Survey Project.

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Jiwon Choi, Debbie Hecht, Sarah Nankin, Rosie Schaap and all my other
dear ones in New York City.
Those who have passed on, including Frank Duba, because he was a
good man, a fine scholar, an excellent cook and I miss him; Owen Wolf, because
he should have been here to see this; My grandmother, Phillipa Lopa, because I
miss her everyday; and Richard Tristman, who as a college freshman first got me
thinking about language, history, and ideas.
UVM Friends, including Liz Fenton, Emily Manetta, Elizabeth Smith and
Jonah Steinberg.
Rob Keith, Louise Moon Rosales, Paul Toth, Lexapro and Prozac.
Last and most importantly, Dr. Jennifer Ann Dickinson, my wife, my love,
my best friend, and my role model. I love you, Jenny. And Thalia and Zora, our
kids, who have had to put up with a lot from me, even though they’re still really
little.

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Andy Kolovos

ARCHIVING CULTURE: AMERICAN FOLKLORE ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND
PRACTICE

American folklorists have long preserved their research materials in repositories
dedicated to this purpose. The motivations for saving these items and the
methods of doing so have changed over time, but the practice of preserving
research materials has persisted as a central aspect of folkloristics into the
present—one that distinguishes it from other ethnographic disciplines such as
anthropology. Although these collections go by many names—including folk
archives, folklife archives, and ethnographic archives—for the sake of this
dissertation I label these collections categorically as folklore archives. Issues
related to intellectual property rights and intangible cultural heritage, while
important to consider, are beyond the scope of this project. Despite the ubiquity
of folklore archives in the discipline, they are an understudied aspect of historical
and contemporary practice in folkloristics. This dissertation examines the role of
folklore archives in the field, the nature of these collections, and the growing
influence on them from theories and practices originating in the fields of library
science and archival management. Folklore archives were at one time a distinct
product of the discipline of folkloristics, reflecting disciplinary practice and
responding to disciplinary need. As theoretical and methodological approaches
within the field changed, the utility of these old archival forms diminished
dramatically. Rather than abandoning the creation of archives all together,
folklorists began to modify archival practice to suit changing needs. Of particular

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significance is the impact of the requirements of public folklore work on folklore
archives, including the reuse and repurposing of archival materials in
publications, exhibitions and public events, as well as an increased emphasis on
collaborative engagement with communities of origin. Folklore archives in the
present are increasingly shaped by the theories and methods of professionally
trained archivists. Folklore archives are developing into a hybrid form that draws
on both the legacy of archiving in folkloristics and aspects of the well-developed
body of theory that informs the work of professional archivists outside of folklore.

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Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................1

Chapter One: Roles of the Folklore Archive.......................................................22

Chapter Two: Contextualizing the Archives: An Introduction to Archival Theory
for Non-Archivists ................................................................................................99

Chapter Three: Reformulating the Folklore Archive, 1967-1998......................125

Chapter Four: Diachronic Perspectives on the Folklore Archive: An Examination
of the Work of George List and Gerald Parsons................................................155

Chapter Five: When is an Archives not an Archives? Folklore Archives as
Current Records ................................................................................................177

Conclusion.......................................................................................................233

References .......................................................................................................242

Appendix ..........................................................................................................255

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