The Take Six website contains a searchable database of the archives of six of the UK's most prominent folksong collectors. Each of the archives have been completely catalogued and digitised, and you can search the catalogues and view the digitised documents here.
The six song collectors, Janet Blunt, George Butterworth, Francis Collinson, George Gardiner, Anne Gilchrist and Henry Hammond, collected over five thousand songs, tunes, dances and other folk art related emphemera, and recorded them in their notebooks and files. All of these documents have been digitised, forming an online database of over twenty-two thousand images.
In 2007 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) a grant of £154,500 for Take 6, a heritage educational initiative. The basic aim of the project was to...
- implement a conservation treatment programme and collection care plan for the EFDSS archives collection
- catalogue and digitise six of its major manuscript collections and provide access to some 22,000 images through this website
- use the materials from the collections with eleven primary schools in London, Hampshire and Lancashire
- create an educational websites for children and teachers -- www.funwithfolk.com and www.teachingfolksong.com
- promote Take 6 in the community through leaflets and display boards at various locations and folk music events in Hampshire and Lancashire
- run a reminiscence project with Redriff Primary School in Rotherhithe, London
- hold celebration events at Cecil Sharp House, the headquarters of the EFDSS
This website is the result of archival work carried out within this project and will form the platform for more materials to be made available in the future. Further folk art related materials can be found on VWML Online, the site for the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
If you spot any mistakes, inconsistencies and omissions whilst using it, please do let us know. Your input is vital in helping us improve the site and develop according to your needs.
Contact us at library@efdss.org.