StoryCorps collection
By: collected by StoryCorps, a project of Sound Portraits Productions
Contributors: Sound Portraits Productions; Archive of Folk Culture (Library of Congress); American Folklife Center; National Public Radio (U.S.)
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 41957
Subjects: Social life and customs; September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001; Families; Storytelling; Anecdotes; Hispanic American families; Interviews; African American families; Hispanic Americans; StoryCorps (Project); African Americans; Sexual minorities; Folklore; Personal narratives; Oral history; Memory disorders
Other titles: StoryCorps collection; StoryCorps archive
Description: Collection of sound recordings of approximately 42,000 interviews recorded in StoryBooths in New York City and in mobile sound booths at various locations around the United States.  Each interview is approximately 40 minutes long and conducted with the help of a trained facilitator.  Most interviews are conducted by family members and friends of the interviewees.  Many interviews are accompanied by color photographs of the participants taken at the time of the interview and by supporting documentation which has been scanned. The StoryCorps collection includes interviews gathered through several special initiatives including StoryCorps Griot, to record the stories of African Americans throughout the country; the September 11 initiative, to remember and honor the stories of survivors, rescue workers, and those personally affected by the September 11, 2001 attacks; the Nashville Outreach, for stories recorded at the Nashville, Tennessee StoryBooth; the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Outreach; the New York City Outreach; the San Francisco, California Outreach; the Memory Loss Initiative to reach out and record stories from those affected by memory loss; StoryCorps Historias to record stories of Latinos; StoryCorps OutLoud to to record and preserve the voices of LGBTQ individuals; and StoryCorps Alaska.
Notes: "StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record one another's stories in sound....StoryCorps is modeled -- in spirit and in scope -- after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded." -- StoryCorps website accessed 07/11/2007.  "StoryCorps is a project of Sound Portraits Productions, in partnership with National Public Radio and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress." -- StoryCorp brochure.

Access onsite in the American Folklife Center Reading Room, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Some materials may be in process and unavailable.  Allow for at least 6 months between the time the interview is recorded and the time it is archived. Before requesting materials, please contact the Folklife Reading Room at folklife@loc.gov; 202-707-5510.

StoryCorps Collection (AFC 2004/001), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Copies of 21,356 interviews were also made available on compact discs.

Duplication of the recorded materials may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.

Sound Portraits Productions, Gift ; 2004 to date.

Most interviews are in English, some interviews are in Spanish and in other languages.

Open collection; several thousand interviews are accessioned each year.