Boise State University, Albertsons Library, Special Collections Department

Kathleen Warner taught Folklore at Boise State University for more than thirty years.  A student of  Richard M. Dorson at Indiana University (where she earned her Ph.D.), she joined the English faculty at Boise State University in 1966.  She trained her students in both academic research and in fieldwork.  This collection preserves the Idaho-related folklore collected by her students.  The earliest project dates from 1968; the latest 1998.   There are 136 projects altogether.  They reflect the collecting interests of Boise State University students of the 1960s through 90s.  Popular culture of the late twentieth century is well represented in the collections; so too are more traditional areas of folklore collecting.  Two projects were added in 2001 by Louise Ackley, folklore teacher at Boise State University in the Spring of 2000.

The student projects have been preserved as the students turned them in.  They consist chiefly of typewritten reports accompanied by photographs, drawings, and, occasionally, tape recordings.  A number of written reports make reference to tape recordings that are not present in the collection.  Projects are as short as a few pages; most, however, are longer.