Over the past decade, Folk New England has been collecting and protecting hundreds of artifacts stretching back in time: tapes from coffee house performances and house parties, songs and photographs from folk festivals, dances, and concerts, posters, rare vinyl records, and the treasured spoken remembrances in print, audio tape, and videos. Progress has granted us potent new tools in technology and preservation, but time is of the essence as much of this material is subject to the vagaries of events, the deterioration of tape and paper, and the loss of memory about the times of revolution and revival when we believed that music could be at the heart of the process of building a better world.
We are calling on all those who love these songs, this place, and all the traditions that call New England home to join us in creating a resource and treasure trove that will keep the lamp of folk tradition burning into the future. Within the past year, our friends have contributed personal collections, supported the scanning of thousands of pages of key documents, including issues of the Boston Broadside from 1962-67, and donated funds for the digitization of rare records, and (most crucially) reels of recorded tapes. We hope you will join us, our volunteers, and our generous donors, in seeing to it that this good work moves forward.