Related Berea Sound Archives Sites
- Traditional Music and Spoken Word Performances This link opens in a new windowListen to selected musical performances and storytelling from the Berea Sound Archives.
- Alan Lomax Kentucky CollectionListen to ocumentary sound recordings of rural Kentucky music and lore collected under the auspices of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress between 1933 and 1942.
- Oral History Collections GuideBerea's online oral history collections cover a broad range of topics in the areas of Appalachian history and culture, and the history of Berea College. In many instances searchable transcripts accompany the digitized audio recordings.
- Examples of Oral Histories For Use As Primary SourcesSelected interview texts and recordings covering a wide range of topics.
- Sound Recording Analysis WorksheetA teaching / learning resource from the National Archives.
- Sound Archives Research GuidesResearch guides are the work of Archives staff and the College's Sound Archives Fellows. Using audio and video illustrations, the guides cover a wide range of topics.
- Sound Preservation ProgramThe program's focus is on Berea's collections of noncommercial recordings that document Appalachian history and culture and the history of Berea College.
- Berea Sound Archives HomepageBrowse By Topic
Contact the Berea Sound Archives
The Sound Archives Fellowship program supported both the scholarly use of Berea's non-commercial audio / video collections and the conducting of cultural documentation projects that produced new material for future research use. The program was funded by an anonymous donor from 2005 through 2016.
The programs 71 researchers came from Canada, England, and Ireland as well as Kentucky and several other states. Their work included such areas as academic study (doctoral, masters, undergraduate), musical performance and composition, primary and secondary teaching.
Archival material most heavily drawn up on included fiddle and banjo music, folk tales, folk dancing, and radio programs. Outcomes included conference papers, dissertations, thesis, and books; fiddle tune transcriptions; classroom teaching resources; oral history recordings; music and poetry composition. In several instances, their various project reports and guides provide interpretation and information that remain useful beyond their original purpose.
