Missouri State University in Springfield, MO has created an Ozarks Studies Program intended to preserve the culture and history of the Ozarks. The program focuses on the collection and study of information about the culture and people of the Ozark Mountian region.

Gordon McCann, a native fiddler from that part of Missouri, recently announced that he is dedicating his extensive collection of fiddle music to the program. McCann’s collection includes recordings of over 2,000 fiddle tunes in 65,000 variations, along with 3,000 hours of live recordings made at jam sessions, concerts, and dances, and 200 notebooks filled with tune transcriptions and biographicial information on the musicians who played those tunes.

The Ozark Studies Institute, as it’s being called, at MSU will soon begin the process of digitizing the recordings and archiving all the paperwork.

Now, young people with an interest in history, culture, and music will be able to study and learn these great old songs without the possibility of them being lost for all time.