[PADG:982] LC National Digital Library Program announces American Folklife Center collections

[Tamara Swora-Gober <tswo@xxxxxxx>]

This message is being widely posted

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The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program announces the
release of two new online collections from the Library of Congress
American Folklife Center. 

"NOW WHAT A TIME": BLUES, GOSPEL, AND THE FORT VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVALS
(1938-1943) at:

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

Audio recordings from what may be the first folk festival created by and
for African-Americans are featured in the latest addition to the
American Memory online collections of the Library of Congress.

"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals,
1938-1943 is a folk music collection consisting of approximately one
hundred sound recordings and related documentation such as song lists
and correspondence created during trips to the Fort Valley State College
Folk Festival in Fort Valley, Georgia.  These recordings, were made in
1941 and in March, June and July 1943.  Recorded at a historically black
college founded in 1895, the recordings include blues and gospel songs
recorded by John Wesley Work III, Lewis Jones, and Willis Laurence
James, with the support of the Library?s Archive of American Folk Song,
now known as the Archive of Folk Culture.  The recordings include both
choral and instrumental works performed by artists such as Will
Chastain, Buster Brown, the Silver Star Singers, and Traveller Home
Singers.  

As the Fort Valley Music Festivals took place during World War II, this
collection also provides a unique opportunity to feature the Center's
wartime collections documenting soldiers? songs and other folkloristic
material growing out of the war.  In addition to preserving blues and
gospel songs of the time, ?Now What a Time? also documents the topical
re-wording of several standard gospel songs to address the wartime
concerns of those performing at the festival.  Users will enjoy
listening to the music and will learn more about the impact of World War
II on the people within the African-American community.

Digitizing the Sound Recordings

The sound recordings in the Fort Valley online collection were taken
from disc recordings in the Library's collections.  When original discs
were unavailable, preservation tapes were used.  The analog audio from
the discs and tapes was transferred to Digital Audio Tape (DAT) to
produce a master source for digitization.  Some surface noise and
scratching may be apparent on the recordings, since they have not been
enhanced or altered in any way from their original state. WAVE, MP3, and
RealAudio versions have been supplied for each recording.

The WAVE files were created from the DAT tape at a sampling rate of
22,050 samples per second, 16-bit word length, and a single (mono)
channel. The MP3 and RealAudio files were derived from the WAVE files
through digital processing and were created for users who have at least
a 14.4 modem.

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?FIDDLE TUNES OF THE OLD FRONTIER: THE HENRY REED COLLECTION? at

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

This unique American music collection, released on the 116th anniversary
of his birth in Peterstown, West Virginia, features traditional fiddle
tunes performed by Henry Reed. Recorded in Glen Lyn, Virginia, by
folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old,
these tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of the
Appalachian frontier. Many of the tunes presented in this collection
have enjoyed new popularity during the fiddling revival of the later
twentieth century, and are performed today by a new generation of musicians.

The online presentation includes 184 sound recordings, available in
WaveForm, MP3, and RealAudio formats; Jabbour's fieldnotes; and
sixty-nine musical transcriptions.  New descriptive notes on tune
histories and musical features accompany the sound recordings, and an
extensive listing of related publications and a glossary of musical
 provide further avenues for exploration.

An essay by Alan Jabbour (with photographs by Carl Fleischhauer, Karen
Singer Jabbour, and Kit Olson) discussing Reed's life, art, and
influence accompanies the collection as a special presentation.

Digitizing the Sound recordings

The sound recordings in Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed
Collection were transferred from the original 7-inch, 7.5 ips (inches
per second) analog tape reels to digital audio tape (DAT) to produce a
master source for digitization.  Some transfers were made by the
American Folklife Center, and by the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and
Recorded Sound Division Laboratory, using their customary and
conservative practices of level, equalization, and noise reduction.

WaveForm (.wav), MPEG 2, Layer 3 (.mp3), and RealAudio (.ra) versions
have been supplied for each recording. The Wave files were created from
the DAT tape at a sampling rate of 44,100 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 a14.4 modem (8-bit). The RealAudio - G2 files
were created for users who have at least a 24 modem.  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 surface noise may be apparent on the recordings, and tracks may
start or end abruptly, as on the original recordings.  Minimal
adjustments to volume were made to certain tracks, and, on the advice of
the consultant-collector, some snippets of conversation and fragments of
music have been deleted.

Digitizing the photographic prints

JJT Inc., of Austin, Texas, the Library's pictorial image scanning
contractor, produced the digital images in this collection.  The
company's scanning setup brings together 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 is now ranging from 3000x2000 pixels to
5000x4000 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.

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

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

Please direct any questions or comments about these and other American
Memory collections to ndlpcoll@xxxxxxxx