INTRODUCTION
"Shakespeare and his First Folio" is a traveling exhibition from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the American Library Association which will bring a Shakespeare First Folio, along with informative and contextualizing exhibition panels, to every state and territory in the US. The objective of the exhibition is to share the story of Shakespeare’s life and emphasize the power and importance of the written word through not only an original First Folio, but also through high-quality reproductions and interpretive text.
No other artifact represents the life and work of William Shakespeare more fully than "Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies, published according to the true originall copies," otherwise known as the First Folio. Published in 1623, the book contains thirty-six plays, eighteen of which had never before appeared in print. Without the First Folio, plays such as Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest would be unknown to modern audiences. In addition to preserving half of Shakespeare’s corpus, the First Folio features an engraved title page portrait, which is one of only two authentic likenesses of Shakespeare (the other is the bust of Shakespeare from Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare is buried).
In conjunction with the American Library Association, the Folger Shakespeare Library seeks to find an appropriate venue in each of the 54 states and territories, to bring "Shakespeare and his First Folio" to as wide an audience as possible in 2016, the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare’s death. The purpose of this survey is to gather information from potential museum and library venues to better understand how to achieve our goals.
Completion of this survey should take approximately 10-15 minutes.