A HISTORY OF THE ARCHIVE OF FOLK SONG AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS

The Archive of Folk Song, renamed the Archive of Folk Culture in 1981, has provided over fifty years of special service to scholars in the fields of folklore, folklife, and ethnomusicological studies. Yet in spite of its extraordinary impact upon academic and popular social movements, few scholars are aware of its complex history and the role which the Library of Congress has played in the documentation and preservation of traditional culture in the United States. The dissertation provides a detailed history of the Archive\u27s activities from its founding in 1928 to its fiftieth anniversary in 1978. It does so by analyzing correspondence, annual reports, memoranda, and a broad range of archival acquisitions and it presents accounts of the Archive\u27s activities in key chronological chapters representing natural divisions in its growth and development. Special emphasis is placed on the folk song collection expeditions of renowned collectors associated with the Archive, as well as the special projects and activities of its Heads, Robert W. Gordon, John and Alan Lomax, Benjamin Botkin, Duncan Emrich, Rae Korson, Alan Jabbour, and Joseph C. Hickerson. In addition, it examines the significant coordinative role which the Archive served for W.P.A. programs and other activities relating to the Radio Research Project, formation of the Library\u27s Recording Laboratory, and its recording series. The latter part of the study discusses more recent developments at the Archive in relation to the rise of the preservation movement in the United States and the development of other federal programs concerned with folklife studies. Using the Archive as an example, the study concludes that the manifestation of folklife studies in the public sector has had a serious impact upon academic directions. As such it clarifies a facet of governmental involvement in folklife studies and it provides a substantial foundation upon which folklorists may build and consider the new and rapidly expanding role of folklorists in the federal and public sectors

Folklife and fieldwork : a layman's introduction to field techniques.

"First edition prepared 1979 by Peter Bartis."Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-27).Mode of access: Internet

Influence of spore size distribution, gas mixture, and process time on the removal rate of B. subtilis spores in low-pressure plasmas

The size reduction of B. subtilis spores due to removal of biological material in low-pressure plasmas was analyzed in a double inductively coupled plasma system. Argon, nitrogen, and oxygen at 5 Pa were used as feed gases to investigate the impact of different reactive species and high energy radiation on the process. The spore size was determined using scanning electron microscopy images and the length of thousands of spores were evaluated using an automated algorithm. By applying a statistical test the precision of the mean spore size determination was increased and the applicability of a normal distribution to describe the spore size distribution was demonstrated. The removal rate was found to vary depending on the process gas as well as on the process time and was found to be largest with a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen and lowest in pure argon. With increasing treatment time the removal rate decreases significantly and tends to stop in all gases and inhibits the complete removal of spores and potentially hazardous biological material. Possible explanations for this effect are the aggregation of non-volatile compounds or the formation of cross-linked layers which significantly reduce the etching efficiency