MissionIU’s Folklore Archives is an integral unit within the IU University Archives. Its mission is to serve as a center for the preservation and utilization of the documentary record tied to persons and activities associated with the Folklore Institute and the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. At the heart of our mission is a reverence for research and instruction focusing on traditional lore across its many expressive media and genres. As a document-oriented resource, the archive offers unique access to student life at IU during the last half of the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twenty-first. It is also the repository of choice for the professional papers of folklorists who have either taught at IU or received their folkloristic training here. These papers expand the geographic scope of archival materials to encompass the world. Our purpose surpasses the careful preservation of this documentary record. We strive, additionally, to actively develop displays and exhibits of selected materials, as we have recently done with the Warren E. Roberts Collection (see http://www.iub.edu/~wer/). Through the conservation of documents, the creation of finding devices, and the presentation of displays and exhibits, the mission of the Folklore Archives is to establish itself as an active research center and an indispensable resource on traditional and popular forms of thought and expression.
|
