The AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus (www.openfolklore.org/et/) is now available in a beta version on the Open Folklore (www.openfolklore.org/) portal, a collaborative effort of the Society, the Indiana University-Bloomington Libraries, and the Indiana University Digital Library Program.
The post-beta version, the AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus 2.0, will be available on that same URL on October 1, 2011.
The AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus is a searchable online vocabulary that can be used to improve access to information about folklore, ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, and related fields. Supported by a generous grant from the Scholarly Communications Program of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and early planning-grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Folklore Society developed the Thesaurus in cooperation with the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.
AFS thankfully recognizes the dedicated work of the Thesaurus editorial board, the IU-B Libraries, and the IU Digital Library Program to transfer the AFSET to its new home. This work has strengthened Open Folklore as a direct provider of useful tools for folklore studies and related fields, as well as a search-and-discovery tool for online content available elsewhere.
The current beta version incorporates the AFSET editorial board's revisions of the following facets: art, belief, dance, disciplines, entertainment and recreation, foodways, health, language, law and governance, material culture, music, performance, ritual, social dynamics, transmission, verbal arts, and literature.
The editorial board will be completing the review of these remaining facets before launch of the AFSET 2.0 on October 1: general; beings; documentation; education; migration and settlement; research, theory and methodology; space and place; time; and work.
AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus Editorial Board
(all of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, DC)
Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Folklife Specialist/Archivist
Maggie Kruesi, Cataloger
Michael Taft, Head of the Archive
