Sowing the seeds

In one of today’s first announcements from the Arts Council of England in their revised budgets in the wake of government cuts, a first round pass of £615,400 plus £30,000 development funding has been granted to the EFDSS, with a particular emphasis on digital preservation and access. Here’ s the text of the initial ACE press release:

“The English Folk Dance and Song Society will work with five other nationally important English folk music and dance archive collections to tell the story of traditional, rural and working class culture in 20th-century England. The project will carry out essential conservation work, digitise the collections and join them through a single web portal, allowing online public access to the collections for the first time. An educational programme will be run in 21 different locations in England with volunteers given training so they can help care for the collection and support the accompanying activity programme.”