Resources
The Department of Folklore
The Department of Folklore embraces three centres, each focussing on a different area of folklore and folklife studies.
The Memorial
University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive
(MUNFLA) was originally set up in 1968 to
co-ordinate diverse research in Newfoundland studies undertaken in
the departments of Folklore and English, to facilitate the mutual
use of common material, to organize it for research and
publication, and to create a permanent record for future
generations. MUNFLA is an integral part of the teaching and
research activities of the Department of Folklore at both the
graduate and undergraduate levels.
The archive comprises extensive collections of Newfoundland and
Labrador folksongs and music, folk narratives of many kinds, oral
history, folk customs, beliefs and practices, childlore and
descriptions of material culture. It has special collections of
Newfoundland vocabulary, proverbs and riddles, and houses material
for a projected linguistic atlas of the province. Newfoundland
popular culture is an increasing element in MUNFLA's holdings,
including commercial recordings, radio broadcasts, and recordings
of local theatrical performances. MUNFLA also houses a unique
collection of tape, video and manuscript collections pertaining to
the traditional culture of the francophone enclave of
Newfoundland's Port-au-Port Peninsula/Bay St. George region
(formerly known as CEFT - Centre d'Etudes
Franco-Terreneuviennes).
MUNFLA is a remarkable resource and is based on the contributions
of students, faculty and other researchers for almost forty years.
Graduate students are encouraged to discover its value through
their work as archival assistants, and by conducting their own
research with its materials.
The Centre for Material
Culture Studies (CMCS), Director, Dr. Gerald Pocius, was
established to initiate, promote and expand the possibilities for
such research within the academic and the general community. The
centre acts as a multidisciplinary forum for faculty and students,
as well as visiting researchers from other institutions, including
government agencies. The centre sponsors visiting lecturers,
academic conferences and public workshops on material culture as
well as on related areas such as preservation and museum studies.
While Newfoundland is an obvious research region for the centre,
its interests go beyond the region, and the directors are
interested in fostering material culture research in any
country.
The centre houses the Newfoundland section of the Atlantic
Canada Newspaper Survey. Since 2008, the centre has also been
involved with the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador's work on
Intangible Cultural Heritage, facilitating the provincial ICH
Inventory. That inventory is being hosted by Memorial University's
Digital Archive Initiative, and the DAI Intern works at the centre
to maintian and update that inventory.
The Research Centre for
the Study of Music, Media and Place (MMaP) was
established in 2003 to initiate and enable music research within
the academic and general community. Many of the website, CD and
other media projects of MMaP focus on the rich traditional music of
Newfoundland and Labrador. Graduate students in Folklore are often
eligible to apply to work on these projects. Through the program of
the Canada Research Chair in Ethnomusicology, the Centre promotes
national and international exchange by sponsoring visiting
lecturers, and organizing a lecture series as well as annual
symposia or conferences. Located in the Arts and Culture Centre of
St. John's, at the east end of the campus, the MMaP houses a
multimedia and audio restoration studio. While it is not an
archive, graduate students are welcome to use the reading room with
a growing reference library and audio-visual resource.
The English Language Research
Centre
The roots of the English Language Research Centre (ELRC) lie in
research into Newfoundland English that was begun in the 1950s.
The Dictionary Room, located in the Arts Building, became the
centre for the writing of the glossary or dictionary of the
regional lexicon, and the repository of many collections. It was
formally established in 1986 as the ELRC.
The Centre’s mandate is to encourage and facilitate the
investigation of the English language in Newfoundland and Labrador,
and to continue research in languages, place-names, and family
names.
Besides providing workspace for researchers and students, the
Centre houses a reference library, along with extensive collections
of primary research materials.
The Faculty of Arts
Digital Research Centre
The Faculty of Arts Digital Research Centre is a facility dedicated to providing faculty members and graduate students who are engaged in qualitative fieldwork with their digital research needs.
The DRCQF ensures that faculty members, graduate students and
their research assistants have access to high quality digital tape
recorders, cameras, video equipment and software to gather,
preserve, process and analyze field data.
The Centre also makes it possible for researchers to disseminate
the results of their research activities back to the communities in
which they work in new ways including videos, CDs, CD-Rom and
website content.
The University Library
The Queen Elizabeth II Library contains over a million bound volumes, with another one and a half million on microfilm, and an excellent range of periodicals.
The breadth and depth of Memorial's special library collection in folklore (over 40,000 monographs and 130 journals directly focused on folklore, and another 500 journals of related interest) reflects and fosters both the local and international interests of the department.
Indeed, this collection contains much that is unique in Canada, and the Library considers the collection to be a national resource which it maintains at an advanced level.
The
Centre for Newfoundland Studies
Located in the Queen Elizabeth II Library, the centre houses a
special research collection of books, government documents,
periodicals, newspapers, theses, microforms, archival material and
historic maps reserved for the study of all aspects of Newfoundland
and Labrador. Many of its holdings are old and rare; others are as
recent as the report of last month's task force or this week's
community newspaper.
The CNS Archive contains an extensive collection of original
manuscripts, personal papers, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs and
other such materials. Major collections include literary, labor,
theatre and the performing arts, women, post-Confederation
Newfoundland politics and social organizations and activities.
The Maritime History
Archive
This unique archive was established in 1971 to provide
documentary resources for the study of maritime history. The
archive, the largest of its kind in the world, has sought to
collect original and microfilm records relating to the history of
the seas, with a concentration on Newfoundland and the North
Atlantic region.
The largest collection in the archive is the Crew Agreements of
British Empire Vessels, 1863-1976, which were transferred to
Memorial University from the office of the British Registrar
General of Shipping and Seamen. Other significant acquisitions
include collections from the British Board of Trade shipping
records; Registers of Colonial Shipping; the Mercantile Navy List;
maritime newspapers and periodicals; customs records, consular
records; statistical tables of trade, navigation and commerce;
Lloyd's Register, Lloyd's List, Index to Lloyd's List, Lloyd's
Captain's Registers, and other collections relating to maritime
activities in the British Colonial period.
The archive also contains the records of over fifty 19th- and
20th-century businesses and individuals involved in the
Newfoundland fish trade, including the records of the Newfoundland
Associated Fish Exporters Limited, established in 1947 as the sole
agency for the export and marketing of Newfoundland salt cod.