Oral History Association Launches Online Resource on Digital Technologies

The Oral History Association's website is hosting a new resource, "Oral History and Digital Technologies," http://www.oralhistory.org/technology, which provides useful information on technologies associated with the practice and preservation of oral history interviews. The resource includes detailed information and user friendly tutorials on rapidly changing technologies. Over the next few months it will grow to include information on preservation and video-recording, in addition to the digital audio information currently online.

Suggestions for specific topics and resources should be sent to Doug Boyd, Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries: doug.boyd@uky.edu.

Dale Jarvis on the Voices of the Past Podcast

According to its website, "The purpose of the Voices of the Past netcast, podcast and accompanying website is to help inspire the advancement of heritage values in our society using the new form of communication called social media."

Director Jeff Guin writes: "With Voices of the Past, you will find a new type of journalism using the heritage preservation community as its focus. It retains the news gathering techniques and production values of traditional media as familiarized by six o’clock television news programs across the country. But it also integrates social media tools to help viewers understand how to communicate heritage values in the new Web 2.0 world."

This week, your friendly neighbourhood folklorist, Dale Jarvis, is the featured guest on the podcast, talking about how he uses social media for intangible culture heritage work and for storytelling.

Read the transcript at:
http://www.preservationtoday.com/2009/08/10/podcast-dale-jarvis-on-the-art-of-storytelling-on-the-world-wide-web/

or go directly to the MP3 at:
http://tinyurl.com/DaleJarvisVOP

Short Summer ICH Update!

The Summer 2009 edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update is now out. It is a short one, and we'll be back in September with a longer edition. In this edition:

HFNL undertakes an survey of folklore and oral history recordings in the province

SmartLabrador continues its oral history research on the Labrador Straits

Remembering Violetta Halpert

Download the pdf version of the newsletter at:
http://www.archive.org/download/IchUpdateSummer2009/ichupdate008small.pdf

Inventory of sound and video recordings in Newfoundland and Labrador repositories

Are you part of a local archive or museum that has a box of old tape recordings of community stories hidden away under someone’s desk? If you do, we want to know about it!

As a part of this year's work plan, the documentation and inventory committee of the Heritage Foundation's Intangible Cultural Heritage division is trying to find out what sound and video materials are out in the community. We are attempting to discover the extent of existing sound and video collections in Newfoundland and Labrador related to oral history, folklore and intangible cultural heritage.

HFNL is beginning with collections of recordings held by heritage organizations. Information collected in this survey will be used to help determine the scope and condition of sound and video holdings in Newfoundland and Labrador archives, museums and community collections.

Local organizations can take the survey online, using SurveyMonkey, an easy-to-use online questionnaire. You can find the survey at:

http://tinyurl.com/ICHrecordings


If you are working for an archive in the province that is a member of the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives, you may soon get a phone call from someone who will ask you some questions about your holdings along these lines. Once we know what's out there, we can explore further actions towards preserving it and making it accessible!

For more information, contact Dale Jarvis at:
1-888-739-1892 ext 2
ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Dr. Elizabeth (Russell) Miller, Professor Emeritus, Memorial University in Bay Roberts August 16

Bay Roberts NL, July 23, 2009 – Clarence G. Mercer, Chair, Bay Roberts Cultural Foundation Inc. is pleased to announce that Dr. Elizabeth (Russell) Miller, Professor Emeritus, Memorial University, will be presenting "Uncle Mose: The Life and Times of Ted Russell" on Sunday, August 16th at 2:30 pm, in the Holdin' Ground Room, Bay Roberts Visitors’ Pavilion, Veterans' Memorial Highway near the Bay Roberts exit.

Mercer says, "The Foundation is extremely pleased that Dr. Miller, an avid supporter of our cultural project, has agreed to share her thoughts on her father’s life and literary works. Both bring us to outport Newfoundland as it existed about 60 years ago. Her presentation will be a highlight, building on this summer's Holdin' Ground Festival (www.bayrobertsevents.com)."

”The Holdin' Ground Room, surrounded with items of interest from my father's life, is the ideal setting for my presentation,” says Dr Miller. "The Room has a permanent display of Ted Russell memorabilia that was donated by our family; a display of sketches by Newfoundland artist, Sylvia Ficken, that is based on "Tales from Pigeon Inlet"; a large-size cut out of my father, when he left Coley's Point at sixteen to teach in Pass Island; a portrait of my father by Newfoundland artist, Gerry Squires; as well as a large storyboard devoted to my father's unique life story which is so tied to the history of outport Newfoundland in the pre- Confederation, Confederation, and immediate post- Confederation era."

Both Dr. Miller and her brother, Kelly Russell, have been instrumental in preserving outport Newfoundland's cultural traditions. Dr. Miller has encapsulated her father's life, times, and works in her biography, Uncle Mose: The Life of Ted Russell, and her edited collection of her father's works: The Chronicles of Uncle Mose, both published by Flanker Press. Kelly Russell is a highly respected performing traditional musician and award winning story teller. In addition, with his Pigeon Inlet Productions (www.pigeoninlet.com), he has produced a three volume CD collection for the 50th anniversary of Uncle Mose, entitled "Tales from Pigeon Inlet," as well as the works of Newfoundland traditional musicians such as Rufus Guinchard and Emile Benoit.

The Bay Roberts Cultural Foundation is devoted to the preservation of the values and traditions that make Newfoundland a holdin' ground, as depicted in Ted Russell's play of the same name. This summer, the town, with the assistance of Heritage Canada, has been sponsoring a "Holdin' Ground" Festival (www.bayrobertsevents.com) with "A Time in Pigeon Inlet," a dinner theatre (www.pigoeninlet.ca), featuring Kelly Russell, Ted's son, and the Pigeon Inlet Players, which is continuing every Saturday night until August 29th.

Mercer goes on to say, "Part of our mandate is to develop events promoting the cultural history of our municipality, region and province. Because of the great interest, more events and presentations are being planned for the future.”

For further information contact:

Clarence G. Mercer, Chair
Sandra Roach, General Manager
Bay Roberts Cultural Foundation, Inc.
Town of Bay Roberts NL A0A 1G0
Telephone: 709-683-1195
Email: sroach@pigeoninlet.ca
www.pigeoninlet.ca

Call For Proposals: July 2010 Storytelling Conference

Call for Proposals
International Perspectives on the Art and Tradition of Storytelling
Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada National Conference and AGM
Wednesday, July 28 to Sunday, August 1, 2010
St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada

Join the Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada for a 5 day conference as part of the 400th anniversary of English settlement on the much-storied island of Newfoundland, with workshops, professional development, concerts, tours, story slam, and international symposium.
The 2010 Conference Planning Committee invites you to submit proposals for consideration in the following two categories:
1. Professional Development Workshop
2. Panel Discussion Participants

1. Professional Development Workshops (90 minutes)
Attendees at the 2009 SCCC conference listed workshops on Collecting Oral History, Newfoundland and Labrador Ballads, Stories behind the Storyteller (life stories and practical experiences of storytellers), Vocal Warmups, Storytelling and the Internet, and Storytelling in Education as their top choices for workshops for 2010. Other topics identified included Mask and/or Clown, Storytelling Techniques, Grant Writing, Press Release Writing, Stories with Music, Critiquing, Researching Stories, and Body/Movement workshops. The committee will be looking for innovative approaches, hands-on practical workshops for storytellers at different levels of their careers and workshops that will help tellers with the business of storytelling: addressing marketing, technology, and other tools for working storytellers.

Who May Apply:
We welcome proposal submissions from anyone. Presenter does not need to be a member of Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada(SC-CC). Non-members are strongly encouraged to join SC-CC if their proposal is accepted. Workshops will be funded to a total of $300 per workshop, and presenters are responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and conference registration costs.

2. Panel participants - International Perspectives on the Art and Tradition of Storytelling
As part of the 2010 Conference, one day will be devoted to panel presentations on international perspectives on the art and tradition of storytelling. The morning will focus on the oral tradition of storytelling, while the afternoon will focus on contemporary performance, art and use. We are seeking representatives of national, regional, state, or provincial storytelling organizations and academic programs who would be willing to address issues of current focus or concern to their organizations or areas.

Who May Apply:
We welcome proposal submissions from anyone, though official representatives of established groups are preferred. Presenter does not need to be a member of Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada(SC-CC). Non-members are strongly encouraged to join SC-CC if their proposal is accepted. Panel participants will be given an honorarium of $50, and participants are responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and conference registration costs.

Please include • a one-two paragraph description of your proposal
• a copy of your recent CV or artists profile
• complete mail, telephone and email contact information

Send to:
SCCC2010proposals@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2009. Only successful applicants will be contacted, by mid November.

New on DAI: Pouch Cove Oral History

One of the recent additions to Memorial Library's Digital Archive Initiative (DAI) is the scan of the Number 17, May 2003 edition of "Regional Language Studies." The scanned journal includes a preliminary report by folklorist Elke Dettmer on the Pouch Cove Oral History Project, focussing on the Shoe Cove area. As Dettmer describes it:

"This project is an attempt to preserve a sense of the traditional life of Shoe Cove, which existed as a farming and fishing community before the Second World War. It complements the efforts of the Pouch Cove Environmental Committee over the past few years to clean up and reconstruct Shoe Cove Valley. I have specifically concentrated on the period of the 1920s and 1930s, as described to me by those people who kindly shared their memories during the Christmas Season of 1990-1991."

The full scan is available on the DAI at:
http://tinyurl.com/l28unh

The full pdf of the journal is available for download at:
http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/rlsn/RLS_V17.pdf

St. Swithin's Day Weather Lore

Happy, glorious bright sunny St. Swithin's Day (at least in St. John's).

"July 15th of each year was St. Swithin's Day and always acknowledged throughout Newfoundland," writes Newfoundland author Jack Fitzgerald in his book Ghosts and Oddities. The following weather-forecasting rhyme was often recited on the day:

St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair (or "no more" in some variants)

For details on the tradition, see the Catholic Encyclopedia at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14357c.htm

and for a fabulous scanned text of the full St. Swithin legend, see
http://www.archive.org/details/legendofsaintswi00davi

Newfoundland also has its own St. Swithin's church, in Seal Cove, recorded on the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador's website at:
http://tinyurl.com/stswithins

Position available: Conference and Festival Planner

Employer: St. John’s Storytelling Festival Inc.

Duties:

Meet with individuals and groups to promote and discuss National Storyteller’s Conference for July 2010 and Provincial Storyteller’s Festival Fall 2010

Meet with sponsors and organizing committees to plan scope and format of events, to establish and monitor budgets and to review administrative procedures and progress of events

Co-ordinate services for events, such as accommodation and transportation for participants, conference and other facilities, catering, signage, displays, translation, special needs requirements, audio-visual equipment, printing and security

Organize registration of participants, prepare programs and promotional material, and publicize events

Plan entertainment and social gatherings for participants

Train and supervise volunteers required for the events.

Educational Requirements
A university degree or college diploma in business, tourism or hospitality administration would be an asset.

Several years of experience in hospitality or tourism administration or in public relations would be an asset.


Salary
This is a full time position.
APPLICANTS MUST BE E.I. ELIGIBLE, OR MUST HAVE BEEN IN RECEIPT OF EI WITHIN THE PAST THREE YEARS, OR HAVE RECEIVED MATERNITY BENEFITS WITHIN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, AS STATED IN THE REQUIREMENTS FOR JCP FUNDING.

***********THIS POSITION IS PENDING JCP FUNDING APPROVAL***************

Deadline: July 22th, 2009
Position Duration: Approximately one year, from October 2009-October 2010

How to apply:

Send cover letter and resume to
Mary Fearon
41 New Cove Road
St. John’s, NL
A1A 2B9