Library of Congress American Folklife Center Reading Room

Address:  Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ-G49
101 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20540

When:  August 10, 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Details:  Tour; 25 people per group; register in advance

About:  The 20th century has been called the age of documentation, and folklorists and other ethnographers then and now 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 worldwide. Much of this documentation has been assembled and preserved in the Archive of Folk Culture, created in 1928.

Contact:  folklife@loc.gov, www.loc.gov/folklife