The digitization of the priceless video collection at the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives shifted into high gear in 2014, with over 200 hours of unique videos completed, and hundreds of more conversions underway. Plans for the Archive are to make a wide variety of video documents (as well as audio, photo and texts) available online to researchers anywhere around the world.
The Kule Folklore Centre and its BMUFArchives has an estimated 2000 hours of video in its collection, the results of student class projects, graduate and faculty research, the Centre's own initiatives, and donations from outside researchers.
The range of materials is enormous. The materials digitized thus far include:
- Tom Chychul, master tsymbaly maker, demonstrating his craft
- Celebration of the Millenium of Ukrainian Christianity (1988) in Edmonton, with a great concert of massed choirs
- Weddings in Alberta and Manitoba
- Lectures and conference presentations on diverse topics
- A walking tour of the Shandro museum
- An interview about how to thatch a roof
- Conference discussion "The Role of the Female in Ukrainian Dance"
- Materials supporting undergraduate student essays
- Ukrainian concerts in Argentina and Brazil
- Multicultural folk music performances
- Weaving
- Embroidery
- Immigration
And much much more.
Small samples of these materials are available here. More will be posted in time, pending copyright clearance and access priorities. Of course, some of these materials will attract a wide audience, while others will mostly be of interest to particular specialists.
The Kule Folklore Centre has dedicated its own project funds to this priority, and has received help from the Friends of the Ukrainian Folklore Centre, and the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. Research quality server space has been secured through a grant from "Compute Canada," for which we are very grateful.
After we have completed the video digitization, some 2000 hours of audio fieldtapes are also scheduled to be converted. In the future, a researcher anywhere will be able to search for Ukrainian folklore materials in any media, on any topic, from any location, and pull the materials on to his or her computer screen. Research is changing rapidly with technology, and the Kule Folklore Centre is doing its best to keep up the pace. We continue to grow as a significant research resource in our field.