More on the role of books in folklore studies
Monographs are book-length works devoted to a single topic, and folklorists have explored a great diversity of topics in book-length works. Each year The American Folklore Society and the University of Chicago recognize an outstanding folklore studies monograph with the Chicago Folklore Prize. These books, representing the best of folklore scholarship, may be a good way to begin exploring the field. A list of recent Chicago Folklore Prize titles can be found here. Open Folklore strategic partner Utah State University Press published the 2004 co-winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize, The Anguish of Snails: Native American Folklore in the West, by Barre Toelken. This is one of the many important works in folklore that Utah State University has made freely available as an ebook download.
Edited books incorporate contributions from different authors and are assembled by an editor or a group of co-editors. An edited collection may tackle a broad category of expressive life, such as the study of foodways or parades. Others may explore a specific cultural form, such as the story of Cinderella or wedding cakes, across cultures, across time, or both. Edited collections might alternatively focus on a particular place, region, social group, or occupation, consider a prominent artist, or explore a particular methodology or theory. An edited book inspired by the work of a particular scholar and published in that person’s honor is called a festschrift. One such festschrift in the Open Folklore collection is Roads into Folklore: Festschrift in Honor of Richard M. Dorson.
Exhibition catalogues usually include numerous images drawn from an exhibition or from a particular collection of material culture objects such as quilts, pottery, or saddles. Text collections are books that document the form and substance of verbal art, including oral histories, legends, or folktales. Some of the earliest and best-known published books in folklore studies were text collections, such as those assembled by the Brothers Grimm:
