ABSTRACT
The question of making folklore available seems to me always raises uncomfortable points which we can avoid so long as we stick to strictly laboratory folklore. Because when we begin to make folklore available, we come into contact with all sorts of other fields, with other cultural workers. And these cultural workers begin to ask questions about us and about our material. They say, “Well, why concern yourself with folklore and why bother us with your material?” As long as we just collect and classify nobody bothers with us very much. The sociologist and anthropologist look in upon us, and feel that we are somehow their brothers, and they sometimes shrug in amazement at what we are doing and go on away about their business. But when folklorists appear as benefactors of the public and provers of public taste, etc., then folks ask why, and I think they are fair in raising that question.
