legacy materials

[s.t. bischoff]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the great material and fodder for thought. It seems that a
lot of very good and thoughtful work has been done in this area: The
National Anthropological Archives, http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/, the work
Joshua Beck mentioned at Chicago http://moca.lib.uchicago.edu/, the work
Aiden Wilson noted at PARADISEC http://paradisec.org.au, the Language
Archive Newsletter http://www.mpi.nl/LAN/,  OLAC
http://www.language-archives.org/tools/search/?archive=paradisec.org.au, the
work noted by Joan Gross on languages of Oregon. It seems that the issue is
one that folks have not only been thinking about, but have been working on.


I think Aiden's question is important:

"Is anyone aware of any archives that have field notes or recordings
that are not be utilized?"

>From personal experience I know the answer is yes. My enquiry was motivated,
in part, by just such a question. It was also motivated by the question:
"How could such materials be made available online/electronically. (How
would they look? What ethical and legal questions would need to be
addressed. How much material is there? What materials are out there, and
what condition are they in? Etc.)

I also think Phil's comment:

"I should add that the recent trends in the linguistics field are focused
almost exclusively on the creation of legacy materials and less so on
current archived materials despite their relatively equal status."

is important, while William's follow up is equally valid. As individuals
with skills that can be meaningful to others, we are often faced with
difficult choices at times.  I agree that languages need to be recorded, but
we also must remember that for many communities, the only resources
available, are legacy materials, most of which I suspect are not recordings.
True, the data may not be the best, but it is all that some communities
have. As Blair Rude has shown, these materials, along with other knowledge
of language families, can be used to reconstruct a language, a language that
can be used and can be meaningful to communities.  I think Natasha Warner's
work serves as an excellent example of when legacy materials can be used in
 meaningful and important ways. Natasha's team has spent hundreds of hours
rendering Harrington's field notes (many very difficult to read), into
electronic format. Not only scanned, but typed into the various versions of
SILs shoebox for analysis. These materials are being used to further the
linguistic goals of the community. I think this work and the work that
William is doing are both necessary, and both very, very important.

I welcome any further thoughts. Thanks again, Shannon


On 10/26/07, Claire Bowern <anggarrgoon at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> for Australian languages, the AIATSIS catalogue (mura.aiatsis.gov.au) is a
> good place to look for archival and materials published in obscure places.
> They include references to major collection items that they don't hold, too,
> like the Elkin collection at the University of Sydney and the Bates papers
> at the NLA. AIATSIS also has access officers who help out of area community
> members (and visitors to the library) with searches and locating materials.
>
> Claire
>
>
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