The William A. Wilson Digital Folklore Archives

The William A. Wilson Digital Folklore Archive is an online repository hosted by Brigham Young University's (BYU) L. Tom Perry Special Collections. Spanning from mid-2019 to the present, the digital-born manuscript collections depict the religious life of Latter-day Saints, regional life in the Intermountain West, and the diverse interests, experiences, cultures, and beliefs of university folklore students. Intended to build upon and mimic the physical repository (1960–2019),1 the archive consists of a collection of student projects and 15 genre collections, including that of legends, personal narratives, folktales and jokes, beliefs, speeches, riddles, songs, customs, games, and material lore. Akin to many university folklore archives throughout the United States and Canada, these collections are student-driven—created by undergraduates enrolled in courses such as Introduction to Folklore; American Folklore; Myth, Legend and Folktale; special topic courses; and undergraduate capstones.At BYU, the folklore archives serve as a curriculum-supportive resource that offers students an opportunity to engage with folklore in the archives and on the ground. As BYU folklorist Eric Eliason explains: For decades, students have collected oral narratives, folk art, and other living traditions; transcribed, formatted, and annotated them with relevant social and cultural data; then submitted these to the archive where they are organized for easy access. Also, for decades, students have been required to go to the archive, look at what has already been collected, and then reference some of it in their own classwork. (personal communication, February 26, 2022)This tradition of reciprocity was first adapted to the BYU classroom by the late William A. Wilson. In 1986, he wrote: “More than almost any other subject, folklore must be experienced directly in actual life . . . to be properly understood. . . . The biproduct [sic] of this collecting, of course, is the development of folklore archives to support folklore research. But the main benefit is the increased understanding that comes to the students themselves” (Wilson 2006:83). At the time, the archives at BYU, which would later be named after Wilson, were no more than a series of boxes on the floor of an English Department office. The Fife Folklore Archives at Utah State University, which Wilson had been instrumental in establishing, was still in its infancy, with student collecting initiated less than a handful of years earlier. Fast forward to the present, and students are fully enmeshed in the work of collection as part of each course, and for many as interns and student employees, who are now able to see the impact of their research on the field as an academic discipline.This is particularly apparent as faculty members can point to the scholars who have come to work in the archives. Publications such as William A. Wilson's The Marrow of Human Experience, edited by Jill Rudy; Eric Eliason's J. Golden Kimball: The Remarkable Man behind the Colorful Stories; Tom Mould's Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation and the Mormon Folk Tradition; and Christopher Blythe's Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse heavily draw on BYU folklore manuscripts.The digital archive was created to amplify that impact by increasing the archives’ accessibility and eliminating constraints placed by the physical management and preservation of the manuscript collections. At BYU, professors, such as Dr. Jill Rudy, regularly incorporate primary sources into their class instruction, which previously would have necessitated a trip to Special Collections. With the Wilson Digital Folklore Archives, educators, researchers, and students now have access despite geographic disparities or time restraints imposed by library hours.The wide range of manuscripts, which increase biannually, following the close of Winter and Fall semesters, results in an ever-growing collection of folklore items arranged by genre. There is already a robust collection of personal narratives, supernatural and contemporary legends, and material lore in the digital archive. We hope to see other genre collections fleshed out in the coming years. The largest and most diverse is the “student project” collection that includes over 100 analytical essays on various folklore topics, each including 10–15 folklore items taken from student interviews.Not surprisingly, Mormon folklore enthusiasts will find an abundance of resources on the Latter-day Saint experience. The archive boasts a vast collection of Three Nephite lore, made popular by Jan Harold Brunvand and Hector Lee; other supernatural legends; LDS missionary folklore; family narratives; and material culture. In the coming year, the digital archive will also be adding new curator-driven collections, including a 600-plus oral history project on the experiences of Latter-day Saints during the COVID-19 pandemic.The website is divided by four tabs that are located below the “search this collection” bar. The “Browse Collections” page displays available digital collections arranged by call number and collection title. Users can either navigate collections through searching the entire website via the “search this collection” bar or they can click on individual collections that relocate viewers to the BYU Library Digital Collections database. Manuscripts are continually undergoing OCR scanning, which transforms digital manuscripts into fully searchable texts. By clicking on individual manuscripts, researchers gain access to expand, download, and print individual items.Manuscripts that contain compound objects, which are two or more files or file types bound together as a single digital folder, can be navigated through using the drop-down file-type menu located on the right-hand side of the expanded manuscript. For the first time in the history of the archives, students are regularly encouraged to submit not only their field transcriptions, but their audio and video field recordings as well. This initiative has resulted in more textured documentation, restoring the performative aspects lost in transcription. A wonderful example of this is an hour-long documentary film produced by a folklore student on legend tripping in Central Illinois that draws viewers into the supernatural landscape and the homes of local tradition bearers.2 This added documentation is especially meaningful when we are talking about customary and material folklore manuscripts, which are largely reliant on visual representations.The “About” page offers a brief history on the BYU Folklore Archives. The “Forms” page contains important documents used by BYU students enrolled in folklore courses, which include research guides, consent forms, project ideas, templates for documenting in-person and digital field research, and submission portals that allow students to submit their research directly to the folklore archives. The “Lectures” page is a fairly new addition to the website and includes the Folklore Archives Founder's Lectures (2003–2022), which are delivered annually on BYU campus (and more recently via Zoom) during Winter semester. In sync with the archives’ digital initiative, the lectures from 2020–present are fully accessible on the website and include John Alley (2020), Jeannie Banks Thomas (2021), and Simon J. Bronner (2021). The finding aid for archived lectures by David Taylor (2005), Guha Shankar (2007), Todd Harvey (2008), Tom Mould (2012), Steve Siporin (2013), and Jaqueline Thursby (2015) can be viewed by clicking on individual lecture titles.Work is being done to make the archives more user-friendly, such as revisions to the BYU Digital Collections search tools and adjusting the finding aids, typically used for the discovery of physical manuscripts, to include digital arrangements. As creator and organizer of the digital folklore archives, I hope that visitors will continue to support the incredible work being produced by BYU folklore students and faculty, and increase the visibility of folklore archives and their importance among administration in university libraries and archives.

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