The William A. Wilson Folklore Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections and the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University will sponsor a variety of events highlighting folklore Thursday through Saturday (Feb. 27-28 and March 1).
The focus of the activities will be the collection, preservation and presentation of everyday folk practices, including traditions, material culture, songs and tales.
Thursday evening marks the opening of the "Building Bridges with Folklore Archives" conference. Presented in connection with the BYU Motion Picture Archives Film Series, it will begin at 7 p.m. with a presentation in the library auditorium by curator James D'Arc. He will discuss "The Land and the West: A Case of 'Myth-taken' Identity." His lecture will be followed by a screening of John Ford's "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." The lecture and film are free.
Registration for the conference will begin Friday at 8:30 a.m. in the Special Collections area on the library's first level. Sessions will be held throughout Friday and on Saturday morning in the Special Collections classroom and the library auditorium. The conference is free for BYU students and employees and $35 for the general public.
Speakers from around the nation as well as from Bulgaria will discuss topics ranging from archiving techniques to how to make archive materials accessible to the public. Sessions will be held throughout the day on Friday as well as Saturday morning.
Peggy Bulger of the American Folklife Center and Michael Taft of the Archive of Folk Culture, both at the Library of Congress, will present keynote addresses Friday beginning at 1 p.m. in the library auditorium. These lectures are open to the public free of charge.
On Friday evening at 7 p.m. in the library auditorium, the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives Founder's Lecture, "The Folklore Archive: A Gateway to Cultural Understanding," will be delivered by William A. Wilson, founder of the archive and professor emeritus of folklore and literature at BYU. This event is also free.
Following the lecture, the free exhibit "Folklore: Illuminating Then and Now" will officially open. Running through the end of May in the Special Collections area on the first level, the exhibit traces the development of folklore studies and archives from 1777 to the present.
Emphasizing the student collections found in the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives, the exhibit creatively demonstrates the eclectic nature of folklore.
"The exhibit is different from your typical library exhibit of books and manuscripts," said exhibits manager Shaun McMurdie. "It will inform the public about the scope of folklore studies and archival materials at BYU."
For more information, contact Kristi Bell, curator of the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives, at (801) 422-6041.
