Public Sector Directory

Potential Partnership Organizations

We thank the National Endowment for the Arts for funding this endeavor, which sprang from the 1999 Folk Arts CoordinatorsÌ Meeting at that yearÌs conference of the National Assembly of States Arts Agencies.  Folk arts coordinators wanted a listing of other national and regional organizations whose disciplines intersect with public sector folklore, particularly in the areas of historic preservation, applied anthropology, cultural tourism, and bioregionalism, and the coordinators thought it important to include information about cultural tourism programs and related professional opportunities within the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Agriculture, as well as the National Park Service.  This modest directory is the result.

In general, descriptions of the following organizations and programs were supplied by the organizations themselves. Frequently, groups and projects are referred to by their own acronyms.  Information about organizationsÌ conferences and examples of projects and their partnerships with other cultural groups are cited as appropriate.   Most, but not all groups listed, have a website.  As of this writing, information in this directory is current but readers should bear in mind how quickly personnel and contact information can change.

The time frame to compile this directory was short and much of the research was conducted on the Internet, though some groups came recommended by members of the American Folklore Society while others came to the fore through research and networking.  Obviously there are many valuable groups not on the Internet with which public sector folklorists might work.  And there are many groups that, had there been more than one researcher and more days for research, might have been included in this directory.  We have personally contacted the first 31 organizations or entities listed in the directory

The last eight groups in this directory are clustered together because they are yet of potential interest to public sector folklorists but either there was no time to research them more fully or requested information was not furnished by the directoryÌs deadline.

Margaret McEntire
Madison, Wisconsin
memcentire@students.wisc.edu
October 2000

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