Shift #19 - CLEE and American Folklife Center Webinar
Tuesday, June 11 2024 | 12-1 pm CST/1-2 pm EST (1 hr)
Details
Michelle Hurt, student/intern
Jennifer Gonzalez, practicum supervisor
This is a screenshot from today's webinar from the Center for Learning, Literacy and Engagement along with the American Folklife Center. I had no idea that we had these two divisions at the Library of Congress!
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by the Internships and Fellowships Program that focused on the Center for Learning, Literacy and Engagement (CLEE) and the American Folklife Center. My biggest takeaway from this hour was that our nation's government has taken great steps to help preserve and promote culture, learning and literacy. We had three presenters, two of which worked for CLEE. The first presenter was Robert Casper, head of poetry and literature in the Literary Initiatives Office (LIO) at the Library of Congress. Robert spoke about his office and explained the Poet Laureate position - there have been 24 Poet Laureates to date since the title changed in 1985 to "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry" from "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress". The current Poet Laureate is Ada Limon and will host Poetry in Parks at seven different state parts around the United States. There is also another position in the Literary Initiatives Office, which is the Youth Ambassador (currently Meg Medina) who promotes books and reading in the nation, especially to youth. The office also sponsors two prizes that honor Americans for their creativity: the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry. Lastly, the LIO has a blog that promotes the annual book festival as well as literary initiatives - https://blogs.loc.gov/bookmarked/.
The second speaker was Jarrod MacNeil, the Director of Signature Programs and the National Book Festival, including Live! At the Library event. Jarrod told us about the festival, which has had lots of iterations over the years, depending on the year. For example, the festival has previously been held at the National Mall or the grounds of the Capitol, it has been fully virtual (because of the pandemic), and this year it will be at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Jarrod also spoke about the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which is the nation's highest award in achievement in popular music. He showed us a clip of Garth Brooks, a previous prize winner, as he talked about what being a songwriter means to him. Though the Gershwin Prize already happened (in April 2024), his department is still editing video footage of the event including shorter clips called sizzle reels. He showed us a never-before-seen sizzle reel, which was really amazing! Finally, the group heard from Doug Peach, Folklife Specialist with the American Folklife Center. Doug focused his time on three topics - the journey to his current position at the American Folklife Center, his job and the center, and unsolicited advice to us interns. What has been interesting these last several weeks is hearing about different Library of Congress staffers' career trajectories and how they came to their current employment.
Doug started his academic and professional career as a musician and an ethnomusicologist. He studied abroad and during the last semester of his senior year as an undergraduate, he veered away from the typical internship opportunities (in Nashville and New York City) and became an intern with the Smithsonian. From that point, Doug started on the path towards becoming a public ethnomusicologist - he got his master's degree and eventually a PhD, had several community positions, and eventually became a Folklife Specialist in 2023 with the Library of Congress. He then spoke about the center, how it is the preeminent center in the nation for preservation and presentation of American folklife (especially concerned with traditional music and dance, plus oral histories and storytelling). The center's collections are not books but are field notes/documents, interviews and other recordings. There are 3,400 collections and over 1 million items representing 500 languages. The center does three kinds of work - archiving (acquiring, cataloging and stewarding items0, reference services (hosting a permanent reading room at the Jefferson Building) and research/programs (they organize public events like lectures, concerts and workshops, manage five public collection projects, and offer grants to those who want to use the collections for their research). Lastly, Doug gave us his advice:
- Stay in touch with fellow interns
- Stay in touch with LoC staff/colleagues
- If, and when, you can, always say "yes" (as this helps you to move forward in your career)
- You have transferrable skills from your internship; think critically and broadly to how it will position you for future work
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