American Folklife Center to Host Symposium on Its Community Collections Grant Program in April

The American Folklife Center (AFC) will host “Documenting Ourselves: Impacts, Outcomes, and Insights from the Community Collections Grant Program”—a symposium on April 10th and 11th at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. AFS Members are invited to attend. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, and part of the Library of Congress’ Of the People initiative, the AFC’s Community Collections Grant (CCG) program supports the documentation of community-based cultural activities and traditions, and efforts to preserve and make accessible the resultant documentation in the AFC archives and online, via the Library of Congress’ website. Since 2022, the AFC has given 29 CCG awards to individuals and organizations across the United States.

The April symposium will bring together ten CCG recipients to discuss their documentation work and to connect with other attendees. The symposium promises to be an engaging set of discussions and presentations by researchers on the challenges and rewards of conducting cultural documentation in their home communities. The symposium will take place in the Mumford Room (LM-649) of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress on Thursday, April 10th, from 8:45am – 3:00pm, and on Friday, April 11th, from 10:15am to 4:00pm. A full schedule and list of participants is available on the symposium guide.

Webcasts of the symposium and a concert of traditional Hawaiian music performed by CCG awardee Boots Lupenui and the Kohala Mountain Boys will be available shortly after the events. Should you have questions, please contact folklife@loc.gov.