“Penn Museum has for over 120 years collected materials representing the cultural history of the world, including artifacts and materials of archaeological and anthropological significance. The film archives contains over 1800 items, the majority of which are unique 16mm original reversal films, mainly amateur travelogues filmed all over the world, from the 1920’s through the 1970’s. The remainder of the collection consists mostly of films of archaeological digs and expeditions, smaller collections of anthropological fieldwork films, and a few produced films and television shows originally shot on film.

Plans for the future of the collection include subject cataloging for greater access (including collaborative tagging with indigenous or source communities), integration of the collection with exhibitions of the Museum, and interpretive online film exhibits on subjects including travelogue film and tourism.”

Check out the Beta collection Here.

video link

“In 2005, Michael Shanks, the Omar and Althea Hoskins Professor of Classical Archaeology at Stanford University and director of the Archaeology Center’s Metamedia Lab, and three colleagues started The Presence Project to explore issues of presence and documentation across the arts and sciences. Artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, whose work has been shown at more than 200 major institutions and is part of the permanent collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, joined soon after and, together with Shanks and others in the Stanford Humanities Lab, created Life to the Second Power, an online encounter with her archive. As they see the project through to its completion in 2010, Shanks and Hershman Leeson plan to further explore memory, identity, and place. Seed invited them to advance the conversation.”

This years’ recipients include two related to films on www.Folkstreams.net:

Nick Benson, son of John “Fud” Benson, the stone carver featured in “Final Marks.” Nick Benson continues the stone carving tradition of his father and grandfather at the John Stevens Shop in Newport, R.I., founded in 1705 and in continuous operation since that date.

Another artist getting the award this year is African American string band musician Joe Thompson of Mebane, N.C. He appears in Alan Lomax’s “Appalachian Journey,”

Other artists given this award in previous years also appear in films
on Folkstreams, (more…)

Our two newest database collections of audio are from Naxos Jazz which represents many leading jazz labels,and Naxos Music Library which is rich in classical music content.

For Vintage jazz, blues, ragtime, stage, gospel and other forms of African American musical expression check out African American Song

For over 52,000 audio tracks of classical music from the Medieval to the contemporary, with chamber music, symphonies, choral music, solo vocal and instrumental, and other forms, go to The Classical Music Library

Smithsonian Global Sound has audio tracks and related texts documenting the world’s musical traditions, along with spoken word recordings such as political speeches, and even nature sounds. The music ranges from remote cultures worldwide to famous folk musicians. Over 35,000 tracks are available!

The Database of Recorded American Music contains a wide spectrum of North American (USA) music, from 19th century to contemporary compositions, electronic music, folk, jazz, Native American music, opera and musical theater.