We have two good print encyclopedias in the reference section that deal with folklore. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife (Ref GR35 .G75 2006) has articles on folklore from different countries. Volume 1 deals with Africa; Volume 5 deals with North America. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore (Ref GR111.A47 G74 2006) has more detailed articles on specific folktales and folk traditions among African Americans, both today and in the past. For instance, there is a very good article on drumming and its significance. There are also a number of online encyclopedias about folklore and legends that could make good starting points for research.

Here are some of the collections of African American folktales that the library has.  (You can find more by doing a keyword search in ALICE, the library catalog, for African American and tales.)

• Goss, Linda, and Marian E. Barnes, eds. Talk that Talk: An Anthology of African-American Storytelling. New York: Touchstone, 1989. (link to ALICE record)
• Bascom, William. African Folktales in the New World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. (link to ALICE record)
• Dance, Daryl Cumber. From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. (link to ALICE record)
• Scheub, Harold. A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. (link to ALICE record) (We also have an ebook version of this book available.)

Here is a book we have about storytelling in different cultures around the world. There are descriptions of how storytelling works in many different African cultures, as well as in different parts of the United States.

• MacDonald, Margaret Read. Traditional Storytelling Today: An International Sourcebook. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999. (link to ALICE record)

Here are some books we have about how folklore is used in contemporary African American fiction.

• Akoma, Chiji. Folklore in New World Black Fiction: Writing and the Oral Traditional Aesthetics. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2007. (link to ALICE record)
• Thomas, H. Nigel. From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel. New York: Greenwood, 1988. (link to ALICE record)

Here is an article about the study of African American folklore and what it can teach us.

• Ogunleye, Tolagbe. “African American Folklore: Its Role in Reconstructing African American History.” Journal of Black Studies 27.4 (March 1997): 435-55. (link to this article in the Electronic Journal Center)