Related Online Resources

Through blog posts, podcasts and videos presentations of public programs and concerts, you can learn more about the American Folklife Center's collections directly from folklorists, specialists, and performers.

Folklife Today Blog

Folklife Today is a blog for people interested in folklore, folklife, and oral history. The blog features brief articles on folklife topics, highlighting the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress, especially the American Folklife Center and the Veterans History Project.

View ALL Folklife Today Blog Posts

Highlighted Blog Posts

The highlighted blog posts below focus on the topic of “public folklore.”

AFC’s Occupational Folklife Project Goes Online with “Working the Port of Houston” Collection
A post from Folklife Today announcing the launch of the Occupational Folklife Project (July 2017)
Folklife and Intangible Cultural Heritage in International Context
The first in a series of blog posts from AFC staff member, Michelle Stefano, discussing international efforts to create public policy and protections for intangible cultural heritage.

American Folklife Center Podcasts

Discover the treasures of the Library through its experts and special guests. Find full podcast series produced by the American Folklife Center by following the links below.

Folklife Today Podcast Series
Folklife Today tells stories about the cultural traditions and folklore of diverse communities, combining brand-new interviews and narration with songs, stories, music, and oral history from the collections of the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center.
America Works Podcast Series
America Works, an ongoing podcast series from the Library of Congress, features the voices of contemporary workers from throughout the United States talking about their lives, their workplaces, and their on-the-job experiences. Drawn from hundreds of longer oral history interviews collected by fieldworkers for the American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Project (OFP), America Works is a testament to the wisdom, wit, knowledge, and dedication of today’s working Americans. These engaging oral histories, which have are preserved in the American Folklife Center’s archive, are enriching and expanding America’s historical record.

Highlighted Podcasts

The selected podcasts below focus on the topic of “public folklore” in the American Folklife Center collections.

Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection (Folklife Today series)
Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, and their guests Ann Hoog, Carl Fleischhauer, and Michelle Stefano, discuss the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection, created as part of the American Folklife Center's first fieldwork project in 1977. The collection, featuring sound recordings, manuscripts, and photographs from 25 ethnic communities in Chicago, is online at loc.gov They discuss the challenges of getting the collection online and of making connections between the collection and the current Chicago community. They play excerpts of interviews with artists from the Greek American, Puerto Rican, African American, and Icelandic American communities, and music from the Greek American, African American, and Irish American communities.
Greg Vaught, Gold Mine Worker. Elko, Nevada (America Works series)
Gold mine worker Greg Vaught tells folklorists Meg Glaser and Charlie Seemann from the Western Folklife Center about how he came to work at a gold mine and his various mine jobs, including being the mine safety officer. He explains how he started using his musical talents to write humorous songs about mine safety and has become Newmont mining’s unofficial “Safety Troubadour.” And he sings an example of his work!

Public Programs

Since its inception in 1976, the American Folklife Center has routinely hosted public programs at the Library of Congress in the form of concerts, lectures, panels, and symposia. From 2006 on, most of these public programs have been video recorded and made available online.

Playlists and Series

There are a number of playlists available on the YouTube page that gather videos from certain seasons of our Homegrown Concert series External or pull together various lectures as a sampler External of the types of topics covered. You can also simply search "folklife" on the YouTube page External to pull up hundreds of videos.

It is also possible to view entire series of American Folklife Center videos on the Library's website. Those links are provided below. Many (if not all) of the same videos can be found on the Library's YouTube channel.

Homegrown Concerts and artist oral histories
Over 200 videos of Homegrown concerts and oral history interviews with artists, dating back to 2005. The concerts take place in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium, Whittall Pavilion, Madison Hall, or a setting of the artists' choosing (largely from 2020 through 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Benjamin Botkin lecture series
Videos from lectures, panels, and symposia that AFC has hosted over the years. The earliest videos are from 2005, and go on up through the most recent events.

Highlighted Public Programs

This 2013 presentation by Elena Martinez tells the story of the Puerto Rican diaspora to the mainland U.S. during the 20th century and into the 21st through the lens of expressive culture. Drawing on the work of folk and traditional artists, as well as the work of contemporary artists, Martinez explores the traditions practiced or developed in New York by Puerto Ricans and Nuyoricans. (Event date: August 08, 2013)

In this 2018 Homegrown concert, Onnik and Ara Dinkjian are joined by an ensemble of outstanding instrumentalists: Tamer Pinarbasi (kanun), Ismail Lumanovski (clarinet), Pablo Vergara (keyboard), Panagiotis Andreou (bass) and Engin Gunaydin (percussion). Onnik Dinkjian remains America's most renowned Armenian folk and liturgical singer. He has preserved Armenian folk songs from the villages of Anatolia in Eastern Turkey, especially in the unique dialect from his ancestral city of Diyarbekir, known as Dikranagerd to Armenians. Ara Dinkjian inherited his father's love and passion for Armenian music. American-born, he plays both western and eastern instruments including piano, guitar, dumbeg and clarinet. (Event date: July 03, 2018).

Public Folklore: Resources in the American Folklife Center

American Folklife Center: Ask a Librarian