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Originally published as the Journal of the Folklore Institute in 1964 by the Folklore Institute, the Journal of Folklore Research was established in 1982 to incorporate more international and expansive coverage. The goal of the journal is to link similar social sciences such as anthropology, communication, history, linguistics, literature, oral history, psychology and sociology. The collection consists of administrative files, including various advertisements, correspondence, editorial board meeting papers, as well as accepted and rejected articles which were retained to document the selection and edit processes. There are also miscellaneous copies of JFR and some other printed materials.

The Ventriloquism Project was a planned collaboration of the Indiana University Folklore Institute and Radio & TV Services, who hoped to produce a documentary on the contemporary practice of ventriloquism in the United States. Ultimately, the project was not funded. This collection traces the history of the venture from its beginnings to its eventual shelving.

The Indiana University Folklore Institute is an active center of folklore scholarship and has a long history of collecting oral literature and arts. This collection consists of papers written on a variety of topics by students taking courses in the Folklore Institute. These papers are dated roughly between 1967 through the early 2010s.

The Folklore Institute at Indiana University began as an eight-week program in the summer of 1942 and received departmental status in the College of Arts and Sciences with an independent faculty in 1963. This collection consists mainly of journals that students created about their Halloween experiences and traditions for the month of October as part of Institute professor John McDowell's Folklore 101 in Fall 1982. These journals were the foundation for McDowell's 1985 article on costuming traditions among college students in Bloomington. The journals, which often included newspaper clippings and event fliers, covered topics include urban legends about Halloween candy tampering as well as the students' experiences with costume selection and preparation, folk and commercialized Halloween products, decorations, entertainment, and food.

Joy Unspeakable is a 1981 documentary that was produced by Indiana University Folklore Institute researchers and film crews from IU's Radio & Television Services. Examining the spiritual lives of Pentecostals living in Bloomington—especially women—the ethnographic film earned academic and public accolades. It also represented an early success in the research career of Elaine Lawless, an esteemed folklorist whose 1988 book God's Peculiar People: Women's Voice & Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church undertook a broader exploration of southern Indiana Pentecostalism based partly on the materials gathered in this project.

The Indiana Communities Folklore Project was a joint effort between the Folklore Institute and Oral History Research Project of Indiana University which spanned 1980-1982. The aim of the project was to expand beyond the University to meet the growing requests by the community for aid in works pertaining to oral and folkloric activities and history, such as surveys and directories, collections, and festivals. The collection consists of materials that trace the development of the project. These materials include the project proposal, a list of the various community residencies undertaken for the project, conference and evaluation papers, and drafts of a resource handbook.

The Handbook of American Folklore is an edited volume assembled by the Indiana University Folklore Institute in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Published in 1983, it includes many short, explanatory essays on the forms, methods, and theories that are of interest to folklorists, as well as guidelines for the interpretation, archiving, and presentation of research to public and academic audiences. Handbook authors were invited to contribute by the volume's editors, which include Folklore Institute founder Richard M. Dorson. This was one of Dorson's last major projects before his death in 1981.

The German American Conference was an international meeting of scholars facilitated by the Indiana University Folklore Institute from November 1-3, 1988. The conference, titled "Folklore and Social Transformation: A Dialogue of German and American Folklorists," focused on the social circumstances that influence the ways that folklorists have studied folklore over time. Folklore Institute faculty and staff including Richard Bauman, Linda Dégh, and Inta Carpenter received funding to invite U.S. and German folklorists to present at the conference. It was held directly after the 1988 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society in Boston, for which some German folklorists had already arranged to be in the United States.

The Columbian project was a grant-funded, multi-sited, ethnographic research project organized by Indiana University's Folklore Institute and undertaken between 1987 and 1990. Titled "Hispanic Folk Poetry in Performance," the project focused on the influence and persistence of Spanish forms of folklore in Latin America five centuries after the landing of Christopher Columbus and subsequent conquests. Folklore researchers from IU and elsewhere completed fieldwork for the project, which occurred in tandem with the quincentenary of the Columbian voyage.

The Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Project was a documentary production undertaken by Indiana University's Folklore Institute and Radio and Television Services between 1981 and 1983. The grant-funded project allowed a team of folklorists and film crews to attend the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Festival, a long-running celebration of classic cars and automotive heritage in Auburn, Indiana, 23 miles north of Fort Wayne. The collection consists of materials that trace the evolution of the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Project from planning to debriefing and includes project participants' activities researching and filming the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg festival.

The Indiana University Folklore Institute is an active center of folklore scholarship and has a long history of collecting oral literature and arts. This collection consists of papers written on a variety of material culture topics by students taking courses in the Folklore Institute. These papers are dated roughly between 1960 through the early 1980s.

The Indiana University Folklore Institute has a long history with the collection of oral verbal literature and arts. This collection consists of legends, ranging from local historical legends to urban legends, collected by students taking courses in the Folklore Institute.

The Hungarian-American project was an international undertaking of the Indiana University Folklore Institute between 1981 and 1984. Headed by IU folklorists Linda Dégh and Inta Carpenter, scholars from the United States and Hungary conducted ethnographic fieldwork to identify the uses of ethnicity among Hungarians in Hungary, Hungarian-Americans in the Calumet region of Indiana, and Hungarian-Americans in Chicago. The project led to the conference "Culture, Tradition, Ethnicity," hosted at Indiana University from March 26-28, 1984 and inspired a 1987 conference in Budapest. A special double issue of the Journal of Folklore Research printed many materials from the conference and was published later the same year. Collection consists of records relating to project personnel, fieldwork, and conferences.

The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife was first held in 1967. This festival brings together craftspeople, musicians, dancers, and other folk artists from every region of the United States and from scores of American ethnic communities. The 1987 festival was attended and documented by students in the Indiana University Folklore Department. Students photographed and recorded (video and audio) the presentations at the 1987 festival.