Big Blue Sports Archives

A Google News Alert has tipped me off about an incredible collection at the University of Kentucky Archives. The Big Blue Sports Archives has 4,000 videotapes, 1,500 audiotapes, 1,500 films, 10,000 photographs, 30 scrapbooks, and 150 boxes of clippings, programmes, and media guides related to the university's sporting body, University of Kentucky Athletics and to its teams, known as the Wildcats.

According to the media release, major plans are afoot to provide electronic access to the collection. The project is dependent on funding, so several fundraising initiatives are in place.

I will visit the Big Blue Sports Archives site regularly to watch it develop.

Harry Sunderland Conference Paper

Here's an example of another conference presentation available online, and this one is my own!

The State Library of New South Wales has started adding videos to its website, along with its increasing lists of podcasts.

The paper I presented at the Rugby League in Australia Centenary Conference in 2008 can be viewed in full from the Library's website:

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/podcasts/videos/comrade_rugby.html

Enjoy, and be sure to send me your (constructive) comments.

Google News Archive

I have long been a fan of newspaper digitisation projects whose contents are available freely on the web. Paper of Record and the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project spring rapidly to mind. These are of extraordinary value to sports historians so accustomed to winding their way through dozens of microfilm reels of unindexed newspapers in search of gold.

The Google News Archive has been around for a while. I was never a huge fan, because much of its content was not available for free. Just returning to it last week, I find a massive chunk of Fairfax newspapers (i.e. Melbourne's Age and the Sydney Morning Herald can be searched and viewed for free. I am not sure of the exact date range, but I am finding articles on Sydney (soccer) football and rugby league from a century ago. The articles appear in PDF and are beautiful to look at. However, I am not quite sure yet how to print successfully.

Still, definitely a development to watch out for. I had thought the Fairfax newspapers were going to appear on the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project one day. but it seems someone has beaten the NDP to the punch.

Sport and Oral History

A recent conference in the UK caught my eye (and ears). The Sport and Oral History Conference was hosted by the University of Huddersfield last month. There was quite a bit of Australian content, with particular regard to rugby league football. Greg Mallory spoke about his oral history project concerning the Brisbane Rugby League. Charles Little presented his findings on supporters' memories of South Sydney, and Simon Foster talked about the 'Indomitable' British Lions' tour of Australia in 1946.

All these presentations can be downloaded or streamed as .wma files.

Other highlights include a feature on the Gaelic Athletic Association Oral History Project coordinated by Boston College, and Up and Under, the rugby league oral history project undertaken at the University of Huddersfield.

Let's Go to the Video

There's an awesome amount of video footage out there for the sports historian on YouTube and on other sites accessible from a Google video search. Some videos are posted legally by copyright owners, but a lot of videos are posted illegally. For example, there has much controversy recently over all the footage of English Premier League goals that is linked from 101 Great Goals. Many TV networks - and especially pay TV networks - are not pleased to have their content accessible in this way.



Some of my favourite historic sporting footage is from the Mitchell and Kenyon collection that was discovered in a pharmacy's tea chests in the UK in 2001! English sports historian Tony Collins delivered a fascinating presentation on rugby league films in this collection last year at the Centenary Conference of Rugby League in Australia. Check out the 1901 Northern Union (i.e. rugby league) clash between Oldham and Swinton as an example. The Mitchell and Kenyon collection is now part of the BFI National Archives, and collection footage may be viewed online and purchased on DVD.

RSS Feeds

I've signed up with Google Reader, and started to explore the world of RSS feeds. It's funny: for years I've noticed that little orange and white logo on the right hand site of certain websites, but I've never been curious enough to take the next step.

Well, I am glad that I have. I've started with the Powerhouse Museum's brilliant Photo of the Day, some library sites, a football club, and what I thought was a sports history site. The feed that Google Reader identified as the Routledge Companion to Sports History is only a general feed for the publisher Routledge. Apparently one of its news items was about its book, the Routledge Companion to Sports History, and I mistook it to be a news feed dedicated to this book. Oh well, just another tip for young players.

There is no shortage of web feeds devoted to sports news, whether from news organisations, sporting associations or particular clubs. However, there really is at this time a lack of feeds relating to the study of sports history. I had expected the major scholarly bodies (such as the various societies for sports history, and groups studing the history of particular sports) to have feeds. No such luck! Closest thing I could find was the blog of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. Pretty interesting, anyway, so it's on my list. For now.

Now that I've overcome my fear of that little orange and white logo on the right hand site of certain websites, my list of feeds on Google Reader will soon grow exponentially. Now, if only I can find the time to read them all ...

Libraries, Wikis and Sports History

Wikis can be a good introductory source for sports history research. Wikipedia is the obvious starting point. In fact, Wikipedia pages are often the first results one finds via a Google search. If you'd like a potted history on a sporting club (e.g. the mighty Celtic FC) or a brief biographical sketch of a sporting figure (e.g. legendary Australian rugby league administrator, Harry Sunderland), then why not begin with Wikipedia? Just be wary that information may be 'borrowed' directly from other sources (e.g. the Australian Dictionary of Biography). Best of all, if you aren't happy with an entry, you can make the necessary changes yourself!

Some 'closed' wikis can be more useful than Wikipedia for more specific subjects. I love the subject guides at the Montana Historical Society's wiki. For example, the Montana Pronunciation Guide is a wonderful innovation, and I would love to see similar guides relating to regional Australian names. I like the fact that while users cannot edit the Montana Historical Society's guides, they can contribute their own stories.

Energy and Teamwork

Following on from last week's post about Flickr, I have been exploring Flickr in search of photos that illustrate our library's values. Here's my favourite so far: a striking image taken by Vegan Butterfly that typifies the value Energy and Teamwork: our pulling together in pursuit of a common goal. We may be of different shapes and sizes (i.e. we have different talents and temperaments) but that doesn't get in the way of coming together and all doing our bit for the State Library, its collections and its clients.

This sculpture sits outside the Drayton Valley Municipal Library in Alberta, Canada. 'Pulling Together' is not only the name of the sculpture, but it's the motto of the town of Drayton Valley as well!

Flickr

This cracking shot of a cricket crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground c.1900-1910 was my introduction to Flickr. The State Library of New South Wales has started to add some of its photographic treasures to Flickr. They make an interesting counterpoint to many of the post-modern photos that anyone with a digital camera can create and upload to Flickr. I have never seen so many photos of the State Library buildings taken from bizarre angles!

Tagging photos is an interesting exercise. I can certainly see the value of applying tags to images. My only wish is that there could be some control over the tags, some kind of standard. For example, digital photographers have uploaded photos of the State Library and tagged them with various headings. These include statelibraryofnsw, statelibrary, slnsw, statelibraryofnewsouthwales, old library sydney, and possibly several others as well! A controlled vocabulary or authority file would be a wonderful idea. However, it is probably asking way too much. (Who would be in charge? One of the beauties of the internet is that nobody is in charge!)

Or maybe I need to stop thinking like a librarian.

The Opening Whistle

In embarking on this learning journey, a heap of sporting cliches spring rapidly to mind. Waiting for the starter's orders ... not wishing to make a false start ... hoping all the training has paid off and that I've turned up ready to play. Please excuse the cliches, as my love of sports - and of sports history in particular - will figure prominently in this blog.

As many coaches have emphasised to me over the years, you only get out of it what you put into it. To gain the maximum benefits from the Learning 2.0 programme, I intend to relate all that I learn to the practice of sports history, to engaging with other sports historians in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM for short!) and to making sports archives more accessible to those who require them.

I discovered the sports history discipline at an opportune moment. Now more than ever there are researchers interested in sports history. At the same time, more records are being created, and hopefully more are becoming accessible. Traditionally, my role would be to unite researchers and those records, but in this 21st century post-modernist electronic world, I'm not too sure. Facilitator, intermediary, anonymous benefactor? Active, passive, proactive or something I haven't yet considered? Join with me as I discover the world of the Web 2.0 and try to make sense of what these technologies can mean for GLAM sports historians like me.

All the while I hope to use and discuss examples from the collections of State Library of New South Wales. This stunning photo above of a bumper crowd at a representative rugby union match in 1903 (http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=430479) is but the tip of the iceberg!