The West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) received nearly $45,000 from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize recordings from its expansive folk music collection. With this funding, an important collection of early field recordings of folk music will become digitally accessible for the first time.
“The musical talents of everyday West Virginians are showcased in these recordings,” said WVRHC Director Lori Hostuttler. “They have long been an important resource for people studying arts and culture in the region. Online access will expose them to a much larger audience. We are grateful to CLIR for the funding to make it happen.”
As an internationally recognized collection of West Virginia and Appalachian folk music recordings dating from the 1930s to the 1980s, the West Virginia Folk Music Collection includes early noncommercial field recordings, African American folksongs recorded in southern West Virginia in the mid-twentieth century, and folk music collected in the 1970s during a revival of interest in Appalachian folk culture. The collection’s breadth, as well as its documentation of traditions of performance technique and repertoire, make it a unique and significant resource for scholars.
However, original analog formats make this collection difficult to access, currently limiting its reach to researchers and the public. The CLIR grant will support the digitization of 488 aluminum discs, 324 reel-to-reel tapes, 43 audio cassette tapes, among other formats. Recordings come from the collections of Louis Watson Chappell, Cortez D. Reece, Kenneth L. Carvell, Thomas S. Brown, and Patrick Ward Gainer.
“While the History Center has always treasured the collections, they are now ready to, and fully capable to, bring the collection up to modern standards in terms of preservation and accessibility,” said Chris Haddox, associate professor in West Virginia University’s School of Art and Design. “There are so many wonderful digital folk music collections out in the world today, and to have the Chappell, Gainer, Reece, Carvell, and Brown collections added to that mix will be a boon to both performers and scholars around the globe.”
This project is supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the CLIR. The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation. The WVRHC will work with The MediaPreserve, an audiovisual preservation business, to reformat media for digital preservation and access. Recordings will then be made available online and in the WVRHC reading room.
For more information about the West Virginia Folk Music Collection or the digitization project, please visit folkmusic.lib.wvu.edu.
About WVRHC
The mission of the West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) is to acquire, preserve, and provide access to information resources in all formats which elucidate the history and culture of West Virginia and the central Appalachian region. As the Special Collections division of West Virginia University Libraries, the WVRHC also preserves selected information resources beyond the state and regional scope which contribute to the student success, research, and land-grant missions of WVU.
About CLIR
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. To learn more, visit www.clir.org and follow CLIR on Facebook and Twitter.