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 ...

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!