[PADG:1069] LC National Digital Library Program announces West Virginia Folklife Collection

[Tamara Swora-Gober <tswo@xxxxxxx>]

This message is being widely posted

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The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program and the
American Folklife Center announce the release of ?Tending the Commons:
Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia? at:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cmnshtml/

This online collection is  based on the American Folklife Center?s Coal
River Folklife Project (1992-99).  The project documents traditional
land use in the mountains surrounding Southern West Virginia?s Big Coal
River Valley.  Functioning as a de facto commons, the mountains have
supported a way of life that for many generations has included hunting,
gathering, and subsistence gardening, as well as coal mining and
timbering.  Articulated through stories, place names, artifacts, and
seasonal practices, the commons powerfully evokes collective memory and
anchors community life.  The commons is situated in a temperate-zone
hardwood forest system unrivaled for its biological diversity. 
Consequently it supports an unusually diverse seasonal round of
activities.  Tending the Commons includes extensive interviews on native
forest species and the seasonal round of traditional harvesting
(including spring greens; summer berries and fish; fall nuts, roots such
as ginseng, fruits, and game) and documents community cultural events
such as storytelling, baptisms in the river, cemetery customs, and the
spring ?ramp? feasts using the region?s native wild leek.

The Coal River Folklife Collection consists of approximately 253 hours
of audio recordings (on 203 cassette tapes), 8,431 still photographs
(8,320 35-mm color slides and 111 black-and-white prints), 12 hours of
moving images (6 Hi-8 video tapes), and 6.25 linear feet of print
material including administrative correspondence, photo and recording
logs, tape transcriptions, field notes, maps, publications, and
ephemera.  All this material, together with a complete project
inventory, is available to researchers in the American Folklife Center's
Folklife Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

The online presentation provides access to digital audio files for 679
interview excerpts, 1,256 still photographs, and four articles
previously printed in the Folklife Center News

Digitizing the Sound Recordings

WaveForm (.wav), MPEG 2, Layer 3 (.mp3), and RealAudio (.ra) versions
have been supplied for each recording.  The Wave files were created from
the original cassette recordings at a sampling rate of 22,050 Hz per
second, 16-bit word length, and a single (mono) channel.  The RealAudio
files were derived from the Wave files through digital processing and
were created for users who have at least a 14.4 modem (8-bit).  The MP3
files were derived from the Wave files in a batch-conversion process
using the MP3 plug-in of Sonic Foundry's SoundForge software.  Some
background noise may be apparent on the recordings, and tracks may start
or end abruptly, as topical excerpts were created from the original
interview recordings in order to allow each presentation to be more
focused. 

Digitizing the Photographic Prints

JJT Inc., of Austin, Texas, the Library's pictorial image contractor,
produced the digital images in this collection.  The company's scanning
setup uses a digital camera manufactured in Germany with JJT's custom
software.  An uncompressed archival or master file was produced for each
photograph, as well as three derivative files.  The level of resolution
employed for the Library's archival pictorial-image files now ranges
from 3000 x 2000 pixels to 5000 x 4000 pixels, depending on the types of
original materials.  A thumbnail GIF image is displayed for each
pictorial image and a medium resolution JPEG file (at a quality setting
that yields an average
compression of 15:1) can be displayed by clicking on the image.

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress was created by
Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife." The center
incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established at the
Library in 1928 as a repository for American folk music. The center and
its collections have grown to encompass all aspects of folklife from the
United States and around the world. American history.

Other folklife-related online collections, selected publications of the
American Folklife Center, and information about its products and
services are available from the center's homepage:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife

Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll@xxxxxxxx