The Maine Folklife Center's archive of oral history recordings, often referred to as the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History or NAFOH, had been a large part of the Maine Folklife Center’s identity well before its official founding in 1992. Collecting began in the 1950s with boxes of tapes, photos and type-written transcripts kept by their founder, Edward "Sandy" Ives.
Most of the materials were sent to the Library of Congress in 2012 with the goal of digitizing them for public access. Special Collections holds digitized duplicates of NAFOH materials, as well as some additional items donated to the Folklife Center since the LOC transfer. Management of NAFOH materials was transferred to Fogler Library's Special Collections Department in 2017. For more information, contact the Special Collections Department by phone, 207.581.1686 or email, um.library.spc@maine.edu.
Fogler Library staff members are working to upload digitized items (pdfs, mp3s, jpgs) that are free from access restrictions, but it is an ongoing project.