Countdown to the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival!

Visitors at the 2002 Folklife Festival (Photo by Jeff Tinsley, from Flickr)

The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival is one of Washington D.C.'s favorite attractions during late June and early July. This year the Festival runs from June 27-July 1 and July 4-8, 2012 on the National Mall between the Smithsonian Museums. The three themes for the Festival include Campus and Community (on public and land-grant universities and the 150th anniversary of the United States Department of Agriculture), Citified (about arts and creativity east of the Anacostia River in Far Southeast D.C.), and Creativity and Crisis (on the 25th anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt).

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries has been collaborating with the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage to make programs from past years' Festivals available online.You can browse programs dating back to 1968 from records on the Smithsonian Collections Search Center.

What are some of your favorite memories from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival? We hope to see you at this year's Festival!

Diane Shaw
Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Institution Libraries