The Smithsonian Institution offers a wide range of free or low-cost resources to visitors to its Folkways Web site. Music teachers can take advantage of the following: 

• Inexpensive recordings of thousands of singers, musicians, dancers, and other cultural events (for example, Nobel Prize for Peace speeches) recorded over much of the twentieth century.
   
• The recent incorporation by Smithsonian Folkways of the Global Sound archives, what the Smithsonian calls “a worldwide educational online download network,” containing myriad audiorecordings and video features from throughout the world
   
• A no-subscription quarterly online journal, Smithsonian Folkways Magazine
  
  
• A “Tools for Teaching” Web site, including downloads, streaming video, tools for teaching, in-depth features, access to voices from many cultures, and announcements of Smithsonian Folkways Certification Workshops in World Music Pedagogy
   
• Partnerships with other audio archives to increase global digital access.
   

The organization, according to its online mission statement, aspires to “heighten communication among and about people and cultures.” For a list of some Smithsonian Folkways recent products, read "Songs By and For Children: A Legacy of Children's Music" by Patricia Shehan Campbell.

MENC member Patricia Shehan Campbell is a professor of music at the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of the Smithsonian Folkways board.

--Ella Wilcox, February 3, 2010, ©  MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)