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Online Resources for Social Documentation Graduate Students

If you would like to suggest a resource for this page, please contact Jessica Hayden.

The American Folklife Center

"The twentieth century has been called the age of documentation, and folklorists and other ethnographers have taken advantage of each succeeding technology, from Thomas Edison's wax-cylinder recording machine, invented in 1877, to the latest digital audio equipment, in order to record the voices and music of many regional, ethnic, and cultural groups, in the United States and around the world. Much of this priceless documentation has been assembled and preserved in the American Folklife Center's Archive of Folk Culture, which founding head Robert W. Gordon, in 1928, called 'a national project with many workers.' As we enter the twenty-first century the American Folklife Center is working on the critical issues of digital preservation, Web access, and archival management." Publishes the guide "Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques."

The Center for Social Media

"The Center for Social Media showcases and analyzes strategies to use media as creative tools for public knowledge and action. It focuses on social documentaries for civil society and democracy, and on the public media environment that supports them. The Center is part of the School of Communication at American University." Publishes the "Documentary Filmmaker's Statement of Best Practices (PDF file). "

Community Arts Network

"The Community Arts Network (CAN) is a portal to the field of community arts, providing news, documentation, theoretical writing, communications, research and educational information."

DocuLink

"A community for documentary filmmakers who share information, leads, ideas, and a commitment to support each other's growth as nonfiction filmmakers."

FiftyCrows: Social Change Photography

"Founded in October of 2001, FiftyCrows couples visual stories from world-class documentary photographers with action and media campaigns in order to affect change."

Historical Voices

"The purpose of Historical Voices is to create a significant, fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century - the first large-scale repository of its kind. Historical Voices will both provide storage for these digital holdings and display public galleries that cover a variety of interests and topics." Publishes an Audio Technology Tutorial.

Indivisible: Stories of American Community

"Indivisible: Stories of American Community is an exploration of community life in America by some of this country's most accomplished photographers, radio producers, and folklorists." Indivisible offers a number of useful resources to documentarians, including the guide "Putting Documentary Work to Work", which is "a step-by-step guide designed to help community organizations develop and conduct their own documentary projects."

Magnum in Motion

"Magnum Photos is a photographic co-operative of great diversity and distinction owned by its photographer-members. With powerful individual vision, Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues and personalities."

McHenry Library Resource Page for Social Documentation Students

Library and web resources specifically selected by the faculty for Social Documentation program participants.

Oral History How-To Guides

A resource of the Baltimore public library that lists multiple links for practicing Oral Historians.

Public Radio Exchange

"The mission of PRX is to build a fair market for creative audio content and an online community of increasing gains; to create more opportunities for diverse programming of exceptional quality, interest, and importance to reach more listeners."

Transom: A Showcase and Workshop for New Public Radio

"Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to public radio through the Internet, for discussing that work, and encouraging more." Submissions are encouraged.

Witness

"WITNESS is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns."