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Au Secours!: Help Save the Archives
Once again, the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore
is asking for help from Cajun music fans, scholars and
everyone invested in preserving our rich cultural
heritage.
The Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore evolved from
modest beginnings and has become the premier oral
history and recorded music collection in Southwest
Louisiana. Begun in 1974, the Archives of Cajun and
Creole Folklore is the most comprehensive repository
of recorded and transcribed materials on French in
Louisiana. The ACCF houses over 2,000 field recordings
(over 5,000 hours of audio time) of non-commercially
recorded Cajun music, oral history and folktales.
Newly added to the archives is the Liberty Theatre
video collection as well as video from the Louisiana
Folk Roots Organization. New acquisitions are being
processed continually and there is currently a backlog
of 400 cassette and reel-to-reel tapes, video tapes,
DVDs, photographs, and student collections. This
invaluable collection is literally a wealth of
materials that serves as a unique window into our
past. Without preservations efforts, they will be lost
forever.
The mission of the Archives of Cajun and Creole
Folklore includes preservation, restoration and
digitization. Most of our holdings are on fragile
mediums such as cassette or reel-to-reel. Many were
badly damaged during three years of library
renovations. However, in an effort to save the
recordings, they are being rerecorded onto more stable
media. Through the digitization of materials, using
the most recent and technologically advanced means
possible, the archive collection is being made
available to a wider audience of both researchers and
the general public. The Louisiana Folk Masters CD
series, that includes the release of Varise Conner
music, is just one example of these efforts. The
Archives is planning further exciting releases in the
following year.
The past year has been very productive for the
Archives. Over half of the archive holdings have been
properly digitized. The cataloguing process of already
acquired collections is well underway and the
standards we have put in place allow for new
acquisitions to be handled smoothly. In turn, we are
getting new materials on a continuing basis. Listening
booths are now set up and there is now proper protocol
in place for patron listening copies. Our collections
are in the process of being uploaded onto the
LOUISiana Digital Library system
(http://louisdl.louislibraries.org)—along with
30-second audio clips to accompany the catalogue. Our
dream of having the Archives of Cajun Creole Folklore
become accessible to the public is coming true.
All of this could come to a halt soon. It is widely
known that the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore
gets very little funding from the University for
equipment, supplies and staffing. Surprisingly it
functions without a budget of its own. All of the
progress of the past year was made possible through
grant monies from the Grammy Foundation as well as
charitable contributions from individuals and
non-profit organizations. However, in light of recent
University budget cuts, and more pending for the fall
semester, the future of the Archives of Cajun and
Creole Folklore looks bleak. With grant money
exhausted soon, the Archives of Cajun and Creole
Folklore could halt operations by May of 2006 unless
we begin to receive support.
We are asking for your help. Our fundraising goal is
$30,000, which will allow us to continue operations
through 2006.
Tax-deductible financial contributions to the effort
of saving the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore
can be made payable to Center for Cultural and
Eco-Tourism, or CCET, and sent to:
Dr. Carl Brasseaux or Jennifer Cooper, Center for
Cultural and Eco-Tourism, University of Louisiana at
Lafayette, P.O. Box 40199, Lafayette, LA 70504
For more information contact: Kristi Guillory at
clsarchives@louisiana.edu 337.482.6027
Kristi A. Guillory
Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore
Center for Louisiana Studies
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
337-482-6027
