From the director.

McHale, Ellen

The New York Folklore Society has a long history of publishing, both in journal form and book-length manuscripts. As stated by the editor of New York Folklore Quarterly, Harold Thompson, on the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the New York Folklore Society (New York Folklore Quarterly, Spring 1954), "If I understand the first Editor's purpose, he [the first editor, Louis S. Jones], wished to acknowledge the fact that folklore is still in the age of collecting.... To be sure, the principal aim was to make all the pieces interesting to those who were not specialists in the so-called 'science' of folklore...." An additional aim, as stated by Harold Thompson, was that the journal would publish "good writing."

The New York Folklore Society has continued this tradition of good writing, continuing to publish the journal (now Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore), as well as book-length edited collections such as Island Sounds in the Global City (University of Illinois Press, 1998) and I Walked the Road Again: Great Stories from the Catskill Mountains (Purple Mountain Press, 1994). The newest volume, soon to be released by the New York Folklore Society, is an edited volume of articles chosen by Elizabeth Tucker and Ellen McHale. The New York State Folklife Reader, soon to be published by the University of Mississippi Press, will be available for purchase beginning in October 2013. This edited volume presents some of the best writing about the folklore and folklife of New York State, as gleaned from Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. Designed to be relevant for the classroom, it is also a great book for one's personal bookshelf. Please reserve your copy today!

The articles appearing in the New York Folklore Society's journals are currently available through academic databases, including ProQuest, EBSCO Online, and Elsevier. Individual articles can be ordered online and delivered to your email inbox via our own website, http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/publ. html. The board and staff of the New York Folklore Society are researching formats and modalities for better accessibility of our material, now and into the future. We will be devising new ways to access our publications. New publications and publishing formats currently being researched will include digital publishing, additional thematic compilations of published pieces, and an online "members only" portion of the website from which members can download Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore onto tablets, smart phones, and other portable digital media formats. We ascribe to Harold Thompson's 1954 statement: "I believe that every high school in the State should be a subscriber and every public library, not to mention the colleges and universities. Can you do something about this?" (NYFQ, Spring 1954). We are hoping to reach each corner of the publishing world. Please join us as we discover new ways to "connect." Finally, give us your thoughts and opinions of what you would like to see as a publication of the New York Folklore Society. Thanks!

Ellen McHale, PhD, Executive Director

New York Folklore Society

nyfs@nyfolklore.org

www.nyfolklore.org