The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales.

Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly.

Sholem believed in educating his fellow man through his literature, and Moe showed that same passion through his chosen career of audio engineering.

"[4] In 1940, Sholem invited his son with him to New Jersey to meet physicist and humanitarian Albert Einstein, who encouraged Moe to record and document the sounds of the world, which Asch took to be his life calling.

Due to a snowstorm, shipping was delayed past the holiday rush, causing Asch Records to fall into bankruptcy.

To get around this, in July 1948, Marian Distler, Asch's longtime assistant, became the president of a new label, Folkways Records and Service Corporation.

[6] In 1984, looking for someone to continue the Folkways Records collection after him, Asch found Ralph Rinzler, who was then artistic director of the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival.

There was opposition to the transfer, with some members of the Smithsonian citing the Folkways collection's "uneven quality" and "balance of repertory".

In addition to its vast catalogue of historical recordings, Smithsonian Folkways has recently begun signing and releasing material from living artists.

Current artists with albums on Smithsonian Folkways include Dom Flemons, folk trio Lula Wiles, Kaia Kater, Mariachi los Camperos, Los Texmaniacs, Our Native Daughters (artists Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah), Anna & Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Mitchell (musician).

As part of their mission in spreading the sounds of the world, Smithsonian Folkways has made the recordings of their archives available digitally in various ways, in addition to retail distribution of CDs (some titles Manufactured on Demand) and LPs.

The anthology includes 111 tracks on six discs, held within a 200-page compilation of historical essays, musical analyses, and contemporary photographs of the musicians.

The anthology contains classic recordings, 20 previously unreleased tracks, historic live performances, and special collaborations from Pete Seeger's career, as well as six discs and a large-format, 200-page book.

In 2003, Smithsonian Folkways, in conjunction with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, began a project called "Save Our Sounds" that aims at preserving the sounds vital to American history which are deteriorating, such as Thomas Edison's recordings made on wax cylinders and others done on acetate discs in the early 20th century.

[15] The Save America's Treasures program initiated by the White House Millennium Council awarded a matching grant of $750,000 for the project.

The goal of the project is to expose the nation to the need for sound preservation, and to protect the most important and "priceless" records from the combined collections.