The Department carries out research into verbal folklore and classifies folk narratives and short folk forms collected from manuscripts and published sources. The card catalog of Lithuanian folk narratives, containing almost 130,000 texts, was prepared by Prof. B. Kerbelytė. On the basis of plot, folktales are classified according to the international Aarne-Thompson catalog. The catalog of legends was compiled by B. Kerbelytė. She systematized Lithuanian folk legends on the basis of J. Balys’ Catalog of Lithuanian Narrative Folklore Motifs (Lietuvių Pasakojamosios Tautosakos Motyvų Katalogas) and internationally accepted folk legend classification tradition. The card catalog of maxims and proverbs (project author – Prof. K. Grigas) includes more than 200,000 items. The compilation of the riddle catalog (covering roughly 100,000 texts) was begun by academician L. Sauka. Since 1997 riddles have been classified by A. Kensminienė.
The compilation of the first volumes of the exhaustive multivolume compendium of folk narratives has been started.
With support from the State Lithuanian Language Commission, the Department is building the following computerized databases: a database of Lithuanian maxims and proverbs (manager – Dr. Lilija Kudirkienė) and a database of Lithuanian incantations (manager – Dr. Daiva Vaitkevičienė).