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Au Secours!:  Help Save the Archives

Once again, the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore is asking for help from Cajun music fans, scholars and everyone invested in preserving our rich cultural heritage.

The Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore evolved from modest beginnings and has become the premier oral history and recorded music collection in Southwest Louisiana.   Begun in 1974, the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore is the most comprehensive repository of recorded and transcribed materials on French in Louisiana. The ACCF houses over 2,000 field recordings (over 5,000 hours of audio time) of non-commercially recorded Cajun music, oral history and folktales. Newly added to the archives is the Liberty Theatre video collection as well as video from the Louisiana Folk Roots Organization.  New acquisitions are being processed continually and there is currently a backlog of 400 cassette and reel-to-reel tapes, video tapes, DVDs, photographs, and student collections. This invaluable collection is literally a wealth of materials that serves as a unique window into our past. Without preservations efforts, they will be lost forever.

The mission of the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore includes preservaton, restoration and digitization.  Most of our holdings are on fragile mediums such as cassette or reel-to-reel. Many were badly damaged during three years of library renovations. However, in an effort to save the recordings, they are being rerecorded onto more stable media. Through the digitization of materials, using the most recent and technologically advanced means possible, the archive collection is being made available to a wider audience of both researchers and the general public. The Louisiana Folk Masters CD series, that includes the release of Varise Conner music, is just one example of these efforts. The Archives is planning further exciting releases in the following year.

The past year has been very productive for the Archives.  Over half of the archive holdings have been properly digitized. The cataloguing process of already acquired collections is well underway and the standards we have put in place allow for new acquisitions to be handled smoothly.  In turn, we are getting new materials on a continuing basis. Listening booths are now set up and there is now proper protocol in place for patron listening copies. Our collections are in the process of being uploaded onto the LOUISiana Digital Library system (http://louisdl.louislibraries.org)—along with 30-second audio clips to accompany the catalogue. Our dream of having the Archives of Cajun Creole Folklore become accessible to the public is coming true.

All of this could come to a halt soon. It is widely known that the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore gets very little funding from the University for equipment, supplies and staffing. Surprisingly it functions without a budget of its own. All of the progress of the past year was made possible through grant monies from the Grammy Foundation as well as charitable contributions from individuals and non-profit organizations.  However, in light of recent University budget cuts, and more pending for the fall semester, the future of the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore looks bleak.  With grant money exhausted soon, the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore could halt operations by May of 2007 unless we begin to receive support.

We are asking for your help. Our fundraising goal is $30,000, which will allow us to continue operations through 2006.

Tax-deductible financial contributions to the effort of saving the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore can be made payable to Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, or CCET, and sent to:

Dr. Carl Brasseaux or Jennifer Cooper, Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box 40199, Lafayette, LA 70504