Nicole Saylor: Archiving Folk Culture in the Digital Age

Nicole Saylor, Head, American Folklife Center Archive
Library of Congress

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

So she supervises acquisitions,
donor relations,

and processing in special
collections, preservation projects

collections on folk life,
ethnomusicology

and documentary media
in the American Folklife Center

at the Library of Congress.

Prior to coming at LC, she served as
Head of Digital Research in Publishing

at the University of Iowa Libraries,
from 2007 - 2012.

Digital Research and Publishing at Iowa

was an interdisciplinary
digital research

partnering with scholars
in the library,

creation and delivery
of digital content

and supporting
open access publishing.

Nicky holds a BA
in Mass Communication

from Iowa State
and an M.A

in Library and Information Sciences
from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And today she's going to talk about
archiving folk culture

in the digital age.

So please join me
in welcoming Nicki Saylor.

(applause)

Thank you Trevor
and thank you everyone here

for being such great hosts.

I've enjoyed myself,
I think this is a great format,

you get us in here,
and have lunch and put us at ease

and then we have to do this part.

(laughter)

So I'm taking you at your word
that dialogues

is really what you mean
and not just purely iteration

so I expect us to talk
back and forth

and not just me up here,
going in one direction.

As Trevor mentioned,
for the past year,

I've been Head of the Archives
at the American Folklife Center

at the Library of Congress.

And prior to that I was at
the University of Iowa Libraries.

I think, I'll just touch briefly
on my five minutes of DH fame,

which was a few years ago
when we did a participatory

archives project where we took
civil war diaries

and letters and we put them online
and invited the public

to help us transcribe them
so that they can be machine readable

and therefore full text searchable.

And in doing so, we,
after a slow start

and not much attention,
AHA put it on their website,

read it, found it,
crashed our servers,

woooh(!) that was really one
of the best professional days of my life.

Anyway, but more than just that
it cultivated a group

of very enthusiastic users,
people who weren't just looking

at out stuff online
but who were using it

and taking something from it
and taking the stories

and feeling an investment
in the materials.

From a librarian's perspective
that's the dream right.

Anyway, but that isn't really
what I'm here to talk about today

although I'm happy to field
any questions about that.

But I want to talk mostly
about my new job.

Bear with me.

Okay.

At Iowa I came upon this term,
participatory archives,

and that's the best thing
I can think to call

the thing that runs
through my career as a librarian.

It's just this idea, this is a rather
provocative way of describing it:

decentralized curation,
radical user orientation,

contextualization of both records

and the entire archival process.

I'm going to do that.

And yet perhaps the more realistic

definition, especially in the context
of the Federal Library,

might be being a site or collection

in which people
other than the archives

contribute knowledge and resources
resulting in increasing understanding

about archival materials,
usually in an online environment.

So I'll talk about a couple of ways that

we are trying to engage
people outside of archives,

people who use the collection,
who generate materials

that we want in the collection.

So a little bit about where I work,
which will explain,

which will set up the project.

So I work at the American Folklife Center

and the archives was founded in 1928.

As a sound archive.

In '78, a couple of years
after the American Folklife Center

was established the two things
merged and so, today,

the collection is about
three million photographs

and manuscripts,
audio recordings

and moving images,
it's a documentation

of traditional culture
from around the world,

including the earliest recordings
made in the 1890's on wax cylinder,

through recordings made
using digital technology.

It's America's first traditional
archive of traditional life,

first archive of traditional life,

and one of the oldest
and largest in the world.

So we have two missions:
we collect and we present.

It's written into our mandate.

So we have concerts
and we record those concerts,

we record lectures
and we hold those in the archives.

We also, like I said,
we have wax cylinders--

that's [Francis Stansmore],
a pretty iconic shot.

We also have the oral histories
so it's not just folklore.

We have oral histories of veterans.

We have a series of field projects
done in the funding heyday

of the 70's to early 90's.

And that's just one example.
We have Alan Lomax,

if you've not heard of him,
he is a very noted folk music collector.

And then we, of course,
archive StoryCorps.

We're sort of a dark archive
for StoryCorps,

at this point but we certainly
serve StoryCorps materials

out of our reading room.

So that gives you a little bit
of a set up.

So our collection strengths are,
like I said, the music

ethnic and immigrant traditions,
African and American

folk music and narrative,
we have WPA folklore projects,

Dialects Society Collections,
so recordings of people's dialects

across the country.

We have Brazilian chat books,
folk poetry,

you know, if it's folk,
hopefully we've got it.

So our founder was
Robert Winslow Gordon

and he was hired by the then
Librarian of Congress

to create a national archive
of folk music.

In preparing for this talk
I wanted to think about,

I've been, sort of, in the cave
of a new employee

not really thinking about DH
as much as I wish I could,

and so this gave me a great opportunity
to think about how we fit

into the landscape.

Well, I would make the argument
that Doctor Gordon

was in fact an Alt-Ac
with DH sensibilities.

He...was...

He studied English Literature
at Harvard,

under Kitteredge and he accepted
the position of Professor of English

at the University of California, Berkeley

and moved with his family in 1917.

And so his interest in folk song,
material culture,

folk belief and technology
all blossomed in the West.

So, scholars at the time
were doing ballad texts

and they were very obsessed with texts

and he instead was interested
in capturing things on cylinder

and not taking the texts
from his graduate students

and working on them,
but going out and talking to people

throughout the bay area.

Anyway, he ended up
abandoning his career

in academia because he believed
that the duties

of the profession hampered
him from his determination

to learn everything
there was to know about folksong

according to his biographer
Debora Kodish.

But anyway he ended up,
for the library,

amassing over 900 cylinders and
disc recordings, 10,000 songs

on manuscript and numerous
ephemeral and popular publications.

If this works...

(brief silence)

(man) Sorry my Chrome is set up
to open a lot of things automatically.

Well, anyway, it's him testing
a microphone

and it's funny
because he starts singing.

So now just go to the last tab.

Oh!

I closed-- I'm sorry.

If you open Safari
which is open right behind it

you might have better...

Okay, let me find where I was here.

- All open in Chrome again
- I know. That's okay.

We'll let it cook, and then I will--

Anyway it's charming
but not important.

Try the volume
button on the laptop.

Here?

(inaudible)

(sound of recording)

(recorded singing)

(sound of man whistling on recording)

I just think that's weird
and enjoyable.

(woman) When is this from?

One of his field recordings,
I couldn't tell you

exactly which one.

Okay, so like I said
I was looking for evidence

of digital humanities work
on materials in our archives

and this is actually a picture,
my predecessor Michael Taft,

did some analysis of blues music
"Blind Lemon Jefferson."

And so this is from the 70's.
And so I went down there

and took that myself
which is why it's blurry.

And even Alan Lomax,
he did cantometrics,

he tried to do digital analysis
of the folk music.

And we also have,
the most recent example

is HiPSTAS
which is at UT Austin.

They're working on
some technology to help

describe and analyze sound,
so they have some of our materials

that they're working with.

But I invite and encourage
those with DH tendencies

to come and talk to me later.

So anyway, I'm setting up
the conversation,

first, about field collecting
and it's important to note

that part of our mission
is to go out and actively

create materials,
actually capture materials

and that's why Robert Winslow Gordon
was brought on,

to actively collect
and our mission continues.

The first time Library of Congress

did that with him and our mission

as the Folklife Center
is about that today.

So like I mentioned in the robust
70's and 80's

not since WPA was their federal money
going into field recording

like it was then.

The AFC went out and did several
large scale documentation projects.

They hired contract field workers
and they talked to folks

and created a bunch
of wonderful documentation

and what you may know as American
Memories has many of those collections

or samplings of those online.

So that was then
and this is now.

And we, budgets for that kind
of collecting and that kind of work

in that way, are gone,
are a thing of the past.

And so Nancy Gross
and Bert Lyons

at the American Folklife Center
worked on a project

called The Occupational
Folklore Project

and what they did
is they leveraged technology

they used oracle apex front end
and Dropbox and put together a way

in which we could work with field
workers across the country.

We've got the University of Wisconsin,
Chicago, various points in the south west,

to collect field work
and have them deposit

into our archives in that way.

So it changed the dynamic,
no money changed hands

but people who were,
who had an interest

in doing this kind of documentation
worked for their own research purposes,

were able to partner with us
and made sure that stuff was preserved

and it really led to a lot
of wonderful things.

And setting up,
setting up the system

allowed us to capture metadata,
I would argue, in a more robust way

than it was back in the 70's
and 80's because

there's so many required fields
in fact that the barrier

for metadata is much higher.

But also, this isn't a
"come one, come all" curation,

I mean, crowd sourcing project,
this isn't like,

Send me every, you know,
interview you do with your grandmother.

We worked with folklorists
in the field,

if you think about how the University
curates, you know,

you hire a faculty member
and then whenever they want to put

in the Institutional repository
it's okay with you, pretty much,

because you've made that curatorial
decision and said this person

is going to work at the University.

It's like, we selected a handful
of folklorists

and then from there we said,

"we'll take whatever you've got."

In one case,
University of Wisconsin,

a folklore professor
sent his students out

and they did some of the best
field work we have in our collection.

Others were independent scholars,
others were affiliated with [inaudible].

This is just one of the quotes
from the collection

and it does document the changing
nature of work in the United States

and feeds into some earlier
things we had from WPA

and makes some nice,
it's a nice continuation.

The other thing that I wanted
to talk about

that has to do with
participatory archives

and trying to...

try to enlist the help
of scholars in our work

is web archiving.

So web archiving is not new, of course,
and when I got to LC

from a university setting
I thought,

"Well, how at the American Folklife Center
would I craft a project

to archive a vernacular web right."

It seems silly
and aren't other people are already on this game.

and aren't they already,
isn't this already well in hand?

Abbie Grotke who runs the program,
wrote an article

which I wanted to quote here
and then she says she's often asked

Why if the internet archive
is hard at work

why are we doing this?
And she said,

"No one institution can collect
an archival replica

of the whole web at the frequency

and depth needed to reflect
the true evolution

of society, government
and culture online."

So okay, it's a little audacious..

Let's give it a try.

She goes on to say that
"A hybrid approach

is needed to ensure
that a representative sample

of the web is preserved".

So with that I embarked
on conversations with....

folks.....

with digital scholars,
digital culture scholars

and...

and asked the question
"How would you begin to scope this?"

And so the advice I was given
was "why don't you,

solicit nominations,
why don't you have folks

who are studying
and that work in this area

tell you and then from there
you can work with technologists

and try to see what's feasible
and how much work it would take.

So okay, let's look at digital folklore.

And so for those of you
who don't know what folklore is,

I think that some of you
think that it's fairy tales

and it is that but it's a lot more.

I love this definition
from a new book out

called "Folklore Rules"
which is, sort of an undergrad,

it's a little primer for people
who are doing that survey course.

So you'll see that it's looking
at all the cultural stuff,

customs, stories, art,
that we learn from one another,

by word of mouth or observation
rather than through formal channels.

So just as lit majors study
novels, poems,

or art historians study
classic works of art,

folklorists focus on the informal
and traditional stuff

like urban legends and latrinalia.

If you don't know what that is,
I'll help you out.

Anyway, so...

There are scholars that work,
[Trevor Blane], is one of them,

[Rob Howard] of University
of Wisconsin is another,

who are looking at tradition
on the web

and so they're where I started
and from there I had other names and

we'll be going from there.

So part of what I'm setting you up
for is, because in a minute,

I'm going to ask you guys,
for nominations,

so we want to look at the types
of folklore on the web:

the things we say, what we do,
the things we make

and the things that,
what we believe.

I wanted to play one example, this is from
the University of Wisconsin, Madison

this is actually a graduate
students, I think is

a really fascinating look
at digital culture on the web

and a real example of the direction
I see folklorists

working in the digital space going
and I feel excited about

trying to catch up
and trying to provide them.

Has anyone seen this?

(music plays from video)

(video) We didn't want to go.

We didn't want to kill them
but it's persistent silence

and outstretched arms
horrified and comforted us

at the same time.

1983. Photographer unknown.
Presumed dead.

It is a crowd source cthulhu.

The faceless, tall,
eerily long-limbed humanoid

clad in a black suit
and lurking in the background

emerged on an online forum
as a pair of photoshops

and a half dozen lines of text.

Soon more and more users
were telling stories,

sharing images and theorizing
as to the nature

of this so called "Slender-Man".

The slender man
is a digital legend matrix

that combines the generic conventions
and emerging qualities

of oral and visual performance
with a collaborative potential

of networked communication.

On June 8th, 2009,
a thread was started

on the Somethingawful.com forums
inviting site users

to manipulate mundane images
to appear paranormal

in the hopes of hoaxing
paranormal image discussion boards.

On June 10th, user Victor Surge
posted two captioned images

to the 'Create Paranormal Images'
thread.

The first of which was seen
at the beginning of this video.

And the second,
shown here,

was accompanied
by the following caption:

One of two recovered photographs
from the Stirling City Library blaze.

Notable for being taken the day
which fourteen children vanished

and for what is referred to
as “The Slender Man”

Deformities cited as film defects
by officials.

Fire at library occurred one week later.

Actual photograph confiscated as evidence.

1986, photographer: Mary Thomas,
missing since June 13th, 1986.

These initial performances
established only a few details

about the creature.

The slender man was tall
with a human like figure.

He was shadowy, blurry
and ominous.

Despite, or perhaps because of,
this mysteriousness,

Victor Surge's contribution was a hit.

Within 24 hours,
other users started performing

their own slender man legends.

This photograph,
created by user Leechcode5

represents the first slender man
legend variant.

It is accompanied
by a caption

which explains that
despite the shadowy figure

standing in the smoke
on top of the school

no official cause for the fire
was ever found.

Following Leechcode5's example
more variants began to spring up.

One user contributed a story
and image linking the slender man

to the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident.

Another photoshopped the creature
into the background

of a sermon delivered
by Jim Jones.

The slender man was adapted
to appear in 16th century

German wood carvings,
old newspaper clippings,

and [inaudible] like fairy stories.

Each time the character
was performed

it added and subtracted a bit
from how the group imagined it.

By performing and discussing
these legends

users filled in the fine details
of the character

through a process of negotiation.

And what's more,
users were generally aware

that the slender man legend
had become a collaborative process.

This increase in performances
and collaboration

led to a rise in the slender man
legend variants.

The rising variants,
consequently,

created some strain
between individuals

who imagined the creature
in different ways.

Faced with a wide variety
of performances

of the slender man legend,
users discussed what they liked

and disliked
about circulating variants.

Users debated how much back story
the character should have,

if any.

Did the slender man
actively murder?

Or did it drive people to madness?

Was it more human?

Or spider like?

Should it be the focus of images?

Or just part of the background?

In my research,
users tended to respond positively

to performances
with perceived connections

to reality, modernity
and plausibility.

This is consistent
with Dr. Bill Ellis' explanation

of the basic social function of legends.

That they place events
in the group's concept of the real world

while also challenging
the boundaries of that world.

This shared expectation
for plausibility

resulted in successive
performances

playing down on some
of the more fantastical aspects

of the creature.

These expectations did not dictate
future performances,

but they certainly influenced
which slender man motifs were chosen

and how they were performed.

Nowhere in the thread
were these expectations written down.

And when users did try to create
unsolicited lists,

detailing the essential
nature of the creature,

they were met with derision.

As multiple users noted,
a lack of a defined

set of characteristics,
seemingly made the character

more accessible,
a public resource.

The case of the slender man
demonstrates how the emergent

nature of performance
plays out on the internet.

Much like face to face communication,
each performance emerges

from an ongoing interaction
between performer and audience.

This process of negotiation
draws on existing expectations

of performance and genre
while also establishing new ones.

These negotiated
expectations emerge

not only from perceptions
of social and group identity,

but also from the nature
of networked communication.

However, despite offering
new affordances in available media

feedback, copy fidelity
and group membership,

performances online still emerged
through a process of negotiable interaction.

Therefore, understanding contemporary
legends on the internet

relies on understanding
the underlying social [inaudible]

of negotiation that circulates them,
defines them,

and makes them meaningful.

It is my hope that my research
encourages further discussion

on the unique challenges
presented by the convergence

of new media
and everyday life.

So big shout out to Andrew Peck
whose work we just saw.

(brief silence)

So the project, the shutdown
didn't do me any favors,

in terms of getting this
off the ground,

but in November we'll be soliciting
nominations

from a set of digital culture scholars
and then pulling them together,

working with other divisions at LC
and then soliciting advice

from the same group
to make some decisions about curation.

So I'm just going to stop there,
I could talk about various projects,

but I want you guys to get what you need
from this conversation,

so unless you have some nominations
I'd be happy to just stop

and hand over the floor.

Thank you.

(man) Thank you for the talk.
(Video ends mid sentence)