Conferences
- Notes
6th
Conference
North American Sport Library Network
Held at the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles
October 24-25, 1997
NOTES ON THE SESSIONS
Compiled by Gretchen Ghent
The following is a summary of the main points from the
sessions at the 6th NASLIN Conference.
Friday, Oct 24
Session 1 KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Eleven From the Polish Judge: Researching Soviet Sport
in Russian and the USA
Keynote Speaker, Dr. Robert Edelman
Dept of History, University of California, San Diego,
CA ,92093-0307
FAX: 619-534-7283 No email
Dr. Edelman spoke about the problems of conducting sports
research in the Soviet Union. He related his experiences
researching spectator sport focusing on popular sports
of basketball, hockey and soccer in the libraries of the
Soviet Union. The important question to answer was whether
the state looked at spectator sport as propaganda and
control or was it popular culture in its truest sense.
This research resulted in his book, Serious fun: a history
of spectator sport in the USSR (NY: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
The Russian archives were not open to western scholars
until the late 1960's/early 1970's. The biggest problem
was that an archive could not be used unless a Russian
scholar had first asked for it. Extensive notes had to
be taken by hand until photocopying was allowed in the
late 1970's. At this time microfilming of documents was
also possible.
At the Lenin Library each page selected by the scholar
to be photocopied had to be inspected as to whether it
could be seen. The biggest obstacle was the person responsible
for the photocopy service, as he had the last say as to
whether documents or papers could be photocopied. At times
sports materials were not copied as sport was not considered
a serious topic by many of the Soviet intelligensia.
Many of the archival materials from organization administrators
were not the best source for the spectator sport but he
found the best source was Sovetskii sport; organ Gosudarstvennogo
komiteta SSR po fizicheskoi kulture i sportu i VTSSPS,
Moscow, 1924-1996. (Major US source is the Library of
Congress which holds from 1946- 1996) . This source had
developed a reputation for being more objective than the
main stream Soviet Press (e.g. Izvestia, Pravda) and many
times critical articles could be found in this source.
The basic problem was where were the earlier issues of
the paper. He had thought they would be located at the
newspaper annex of the Lenin Library, but he could only
see 3 months at a time. The Institute of Physical Culture
also had all the issues, but lack of electricity made
reading and research difficult. This location also has
a large depository of other sport material.
The best source, however, was the newspaper morgue of
the publisher of Sovetskaya Sport. Not only was this location
a more pleasant place to do research, but there were other
advantages as well. Staff had many sports biographies
which were difficult to find in other libraries, plus
during tea breaks questions could be asked of the older
members of staff. In addition, retired staff would drop
into this newspaper office and these people could be interviewed
informally. This lead to contacts with retired athletes
and coaches who could also be interviewed.
Another source of information was many video tapes taken
from Soviet television programs of games. This allowed
observation of the reaction of crowds and individuals.
Other sources included the Canadian book on the 1972
Canadian-Soviet hockey series (ie. Ludwig, Jack. Hockey
night in Moscow. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd,
1972 and, a more recent work, MacSkimming, Roy. Cold war:
the amazing Canada-Soviet Hockey Series of 1972. Vancouver:
Greystone Books, 1996). Dr. Edelman also utilized the
resources of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles
and was pleasantly surprised at how "wired"
the library is. The indepth well organized collection
and staff assistance helped his research in many ways.
After further reflection as a result of his research,
Dr. Edelman concluded that spectator sport was entertainment
even during Stalin's time.
Session 2 SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Sport Photography Research
Debra Hannah, Picture Researcher and Editor, 468 E.
Providencia Ave. #A, Burbank, CA 91501
Tel: 818-563-2928 FAX: 818-563-1680
Ms Hannah spoke about the problems and positive aspects
encountered doing photographic research for clients. She
made many recommendations on how to organize photographic
collections, what kind of information should be communicated
to and by librarians and archivists, and how to provide
service, package and deliver photographs to researchers.
Finding pictures
Every project is different and there isn't a formula or
correct path to follow. More than once a good collection
was stumbled upon by sheer luck. Some of the basic ways
to find pictures include:
- keeping a roladex of names, addresses, collections,
e.g. Santa Monica Public Library listed the Amateur
Athletic Foundation in their one page brochure of local
picture resources.
- referrals are invaluable, e.g. librarians, archivists,
or curators offer suggestions even if the researcher
forgets to formally ask.
- networking among librarians, archivists, and curators
are very important and information specialists should
be incouraged to introduce themselves to other organizations,
associations including historical societies, public
libraries, newspapers, magazines, and even embassies.
- Credit lines in previously published photographs should
include the city too for this can be incredibly helpful.
- Directories of picture libraries and collections are
invaluable. Ms. Hannah suggests that NASLIN create a
directory of sport image archives with as much detail
as possible on the nature of the collection. Her professional
organization would publish a finding aid or list in
their journal (see reference below for the association).
- World wide web sites on the Internet are becoming
increasingly important. At this time judgement is being
reserved on how effective online picture research will
be and there are concerns about the portions of the
collections that will never be digitized and the loss
of personal/professional interchange that happens when
researcher and information specialist speak to each
other.
Initial Inquiries and Typical Questions
Receiving a prompt answer from an archives/library is
essential. Every "no" is helpful and it makes
one aware that there is a problem and more research is
required.
Questions to librarians/archivists include:
- What is the scope of your image collection?
- Are the photos in color, black & white, slides,
prints, contact sheets, or negatives?
- Are they organized or thrown in a drawer?
- Are the pictures available for reporduction?
- What is the status of the copyright?
- What format will the photos be in for reviewing, e.g.
photocopies of the prints, or duplicate slides?
- What are the procedures for access? e.g. can a visit
be made; does the holding library or archive have staff
who can pull photos from the files, or can someone be
paid a fee for doing this work?
- What is turnaround time for research or laboratory
work?
- What are the reproduction fees and research fees?
Researching Images in Libraries/Archives - Library/Archive
staff perspective:
- Try to understand the context of the specific request
and give thought to how your collection can contribute.
- Ask whether the requestor would like to see tangential
but applicable images. Sometimes the perfect picture
is in your archive, but the requestor has not specifically
asked for it because it never ocurred to them you would
have it.
- Inquire about the context and scope of the project
(to prevent tunnel vision on part of the requestor or
the staff).
- Always ask for clarification if the want list seems
confusing or something is unclear.
- Know the provenance of your images, and fully inform
the requestor.
Reproduction of Photographs
- For institutions with photo collections, have in
place a laboratory which will do the reproduction work
and know their format choices, fees and turnaround times.
Some archives have specific requirements. Make
certain a policy is in place to cover various publication
concerns:
- Is permission for one specific use only?
- Do reprintings or additional uses need additional
permission?
- When copyright status is unclear an archive cannot
give warranty rights and the publisher must use the
photo at their own risk.
- No permissions are granted until fees are paid in
full.
- The publisher cannot authorize others to use the images.
- Can the photos be resized or cropped, but any other
significant alterations require specific permission.
Technical Details for Sending Photos or Sample
Images
- When faxing images, use the haftone setting on the
fax machine. This makes the difference between receiving
"mud" and receiving some semblance of an viewable
image.
- Be sure to include captioning information, specifying
your name, telephone number, address plus your credit
line on each image.
- Ideally captioning information would be located on
the front of each image. This cuts photocopying time
in half and fewer mistakes are made.
- When shipping photos, call before sending. Knowing
images are ready for dispatch alleviates a lot of anxiety
and gives the requestor an opportunity to ask if problem
images were found. It also allows the coordination of
shipping method.
- Avoid staples and paperclips in a package with images.
Sandwich originals between heavy cardboard and bind
with rubber bands.
- Enclose a delivery memo stating the quantity delivered,
whether the requestor can keep the photos or if they
must be returned, the due date for return, and the exact
wording of the credit line for publication.
An finally there are thousands of reasons why good pictures
are not used in publications or are not used as scheduled.
If you submit picture and none are published please don't
take this personally for is is not a relection on the
quality of your research nor of the usefulness of your
images. Sometimes the editor has to pass on pictures they
like but many times, these are used in later projects.
Recommended Reading:
- Besenjak, Cheryl. Copyright plain and simple. Franklin
Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 1997.
- Evans, Hilary. Picture researcher's handbook: an international
guide to picture sources and how to use them. 6th ed,
London/NY: Routledge, 1996.
- Persky, Robert S. Stock photo deskbook, 5th ed, NY:
Photographic Arts Center, 1995.
- SPRED, quarterly magazine of the Society of Picture
Researchers and Editors, 455 Finchley Rd., London, NW3
OHN, England, Tel: 44 171 431 9886 FAX: 44 171 431 9887
Session 3 SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY
The Allsport Digital Photo Archive
Matthew Schoen, IS Manager, Allsport Photography (USA)
Inc.
17383 Sunset Blvd, Suite 300, Pacific Palisades, California
90272 Tel: 310-230-3400 Website: www.allsport.com
The All Sport Digital Archives is an online collection
of over 6 million sport photographic images. The company,
started in 1969, is based in California and London, England
and has 150 employees plus many more who act as agents.
Over a year's period photographers attend over 2500 events,
taking an average of 30,000 photographs per week. Approximately
5,000 images are scanned into the database per week. Clients
of their service include periodical and book publishers,
newpapers, and major websites. The database contains photographs
of all major professional sports, Olympic sports, special
events (marathons), but has few photographs of the minor
sports.
Captioning the photographs is one of the most difficult
tasks to be done and is the one which creates the biggest
bottleneck. This work is outsourced to a company called
the Electronic Scriptorium, where monks and nuns from
various cloisters caption about 3500 photographic images
per week. Keeping up to date on a daily basis is the company's
biggest challenge.
Clients access file via the Internet or direct dial on
an ISDN channel. Prepaid clients can do full system searches
and can download the thumbnail (small-sized) pictures.
There is a feature called Allsport Today which allows
clients to get a snap shot of the events being covered
live by Allsport for that day. A preview image and text
are displayed for each event being covered. For more long
term projects clients usually do searches for specific
teams or individuals. When clients see a photograph they
want to use, they can download it. Their account is automatically
charged. Clients pay a flat fee per month for various
types of access ($250-$500). Allsport will probably not
open this database for Internet access because of the
costs of charging casual clients small fees for few photographs
(under $1).
Allsport is also embarking on a conceptual searching
project and creating a thesaurus of key words. The company
also has a retrospective project underway where they are
selecting the best material from over 6 million photos.
Session 4 INTERNATIONAL SPORTS
ORGANIZATIONS
International Association of Sports Museums and Halls
of Fame
Karen Goddy, Collections Manager, Amateur Athletic
Foundation of Los AngelesA, 2141 West Adams Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90018 Tel:213-730-9625 FAX:213-730-9637
IASMHF has member sport museums from around the world
with most members from North America. The Association
publishes a directory every year which lists basic information
about the sport museum and gives names, telephone/fax
numbers of key museum personnel. The next edition will
be published in April 1998.
To assist in the management of the association, executive
officers have hired an administrative assistant, Ms Terry
Cober (4400 A. Ambassador Caffrey Parkway, Suite 200,
Lafayette, LA 70508. Email: tcober@net-connect.com
The association's annual conferences move to various
locations every year. In late September 1998 they will
meet at the Miskegen Michigan Area Sports Hall of Fame.
In late October 1999, Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games
Museum will host the conference.
Session 5 INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS
The International Association for Sports Information
and Its Cooperative Partners
Gretchen Ghent, Vice-President for North America of the
International Association for Sport Information,
c/o University of Calgary Libraries, MLT116F, 2500 UniversityDr.
NW,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N 1N4 Tel: 403-220-6097
FAX: 403-2826837 Email: gghent@ucalgary.ca
This talk centered in the goals, objectives and liaison
work of International Association
for Sports Information (IASI) as shown through a series
of overhead transparencies and material photocopied for
conference participants.
IASI's Objectives are:
- To service the membership of IASI through an efficiently
administered association which provides regular communication
and professional development opportunities for members.
- To encourage and support national, regional and international
initiatives in sport information development and to
provide guidance and assistance in this development.
- To apply new technology for the effective management
of sport information and to facilitate the sharing of
sport information in all parts of the world.
- To develop strategic alliances with other organizsations
operating in the field of sport and physical activity
and to promote an awareness of the activities of IASI
to these organizations.
The following is a basic outline of the organizational
IASI structure
1.General Goals
- To stimulate, support and develop activities in the
field of international documentation and information
for physical activity and sport.
2. Organizational Structure
2.1 The Presidium
- President
- Vice-Presidents for Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America,
North America, Oceania
- Secretary/Treasurer
2.2 Executive Committee
25 members elected during the quadrennial congress
2.3 General Assembly
2.4 Other bodies including
- regional bureaus usually united by a common language
or geography. e.g. SPORTCOM for the Spanish speaking
countries
- Specialized Ad Hoc Working groups e.g. These bodies
exist for a specified time period to work on projects
Recent projects include IASI/IOC Manual for Developing
Countries and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Sport Statisics.
3. Services
3.1 Publications
3.1.1. Newsletter - published on a quarterly basis
3.1.2. World Directory of Sport Libraries, Information
and Documentation Centres (1996 latest edition. 57p. Available
from SIRC for $US 25)
3.1.3. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow:
- Better sport documentation through international
cooperation. Brussels, IASI, 1994. 51p. (OP)
3.2. IASI listserv
- for IASI members only. Moderated by Ayala Maharik,
Library Director, Wingate Institute, Israel.
3.3 Meetings and Congresses
- Holds annual meetings for all IASI members to attend.
Next meeting will be held in Hong Kong, March 31-April
5, 1998, at the Sports Institute of Hong Kong. The 1999
meeting may be held at AAFLA.
- Holds a Congress every four years. The site of the
next congress under consideration at the moment.
4. Affiliations with Other Organizations
4.1 Sport Information Resource Centre
- Most IASI institutional members have agreed that
it is desirable to contribute indexed documents/articles
from their respective countries to the SPORTDiscus/Database.
The French sport database Heracles is mounted as a separate
database on the SPORTDiscus and other sport-related
databases may also be added soon.
4.2. International Olympic Committee
- Fekrou Kedane, Director of International Cooperation
and Public Information for the IOC is the main link
with the IOC
4.3. International Council of Sport Science and Physical
Education
- Dr. Gudrun Doll-Tepper, current President of ICSSPE
4.4. Other Organizations
- At times other organizations including the International
Standards Organization, International Statistical Institute,
Statistics Working Group, and the International Federation
for Documentation (FID) are contacted regarding projects
and/or topics relating to sport information. At the
1997 IASI meeting it was also recommended that IASI
establish contacts with General Association of International
Sports Federations, International Sporting Press Association
(AIPS), International Federation of Library Associations,
International Association of Sports Museums and Halls
of Fame and the Council of Europe.
5. Membership
5.1.1. There are three types of membership: institutional,
individual and honorary. At meetings institutional members
are given 3 votes and individual, one.
5.2.1. Costs of membership:
- Individual - $US 50
- Institutional - $US 75
5.2.2. Size of membership as of 1997:
- 100 institutional members
- 32 personal members
- 9 honorary members
- TOTAL = 141 members
- The largest number of memberships are from Europe
and the smallest from North America and Africa.
LIAISON WORK OF IASI
As one excellent example of the work of IASI members,
the Oceania Regional Sport Information Centre (ORSIC)
has been established. From March 1997-1999 the following
basic outline explains the nature of the project.
Purpose: To establish a sports information
centre for the Oceania region to collect and distribute
information in the fields of sport and physical education
for use by coaches, adminisistrators, managers, and athletes.
This is in support of the Australian South Pacific 2000
Program prior to the Sydney Olympic Games
Stakeholders: An initiative of the Australian
Sport Commission's National Sport Information Centre who
obtained funding from the International Olympic Committee
with other assistance and support from:
- Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC)
- UNESCO
- International Council for Sport Sciences and Physical
Education (ICSSPE)
Location of the ORSIC:
- The Library of the University of the South Pacific,
Suva, Fiji
Functions of the ORSIC:
- To develop a coordinated regional plan for organized
collection development and information dissemination
- To produce an automated bibliographic database of
sports information produced and available in the Oceania
region
- To provide information services, i.e., document delivery,
database searches, Internet searches, reference services,
information kits, video programs.
- And other related services
The major liaison, training and advice will come from
the staff and services of Australia's National Sport Information
Centre. Some of these services include: Interlibrary loan,
the Australian Sportcal and Oceania Events calendar, monthly
current awareness publications.
Reference: Clarke, Nerida. The development
of an Oceania regional sport and physical education information
resource centre in Fiji, In, Proceedings of the 10th Scientific
Congress of the International Association for Sports Information,
Paris, June 10-12, 1997, p. 270-275.
Tour of the AAFLA Library
Wayne Wilson conducted a tour of the AAFLA library and
talked about the current project underway whereby the
Official Reports from the 1932 and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic
Games are being scanned by a company called Glyphica and
will be available, full text, via their website in December.
This company uses Adobe Acrobat software where text is
scanned to PDF format (Portable Document Format). The
scanned documents maintain their visual integrity but
also support fulltext searching. (For more information
consult the Glyphica website: www.glyphica.com
or contact them at Glyphica, 2224 Old Middlefield Way,
Suite E, Mountin View, CA 94043. Tel: 650-428-1800 FAX:
650-428-1820)
Another enchancement of AAFLA library services includes
access to their online catalogue. Again this should be
available in December 1997. AAFLA cataloguing records
are also sent to OCLC's WorldCat, the large bibliographic
utility for special, academica and public library holdings.
Saturday, October 25, 1997
Session 6. TECHNOLOGY UPDATES
Developing a Sports Business Network on the Internet
Richard Lipsey, President & Founder, SGRnet, PO
Box 1417
Princeton, NJ 08542, Tel: 609-921-8599
Email:information@sgrnet.com
Website: www.sgrnet.com
SGRnet, the Sporting Goods Research Network, is an informational
database which contains a variety of statistical data
from many sources including the National Sporting Goods
Association, the US Department of Commerce, the Sporting
Goods Agents Association. The target audience is marketing
and sales executives, sports marketing professionals,
advertising companies, corporate sponsors, sports journalists,
business libraries and college sports marketing programs.
The first stage of development of SGRnet contains sporting
goods research and industry news only, but plans are underway
to expand the content to cover sports marketing, sports
broadcasting, sports facility management, more coverage
of extreme sports, trade publications including equipment
and sports medicine.
Presently the market research part of the database has
participation data on 63 sports. This data is available
in a state by state compilation for 34 sports, plus statistics
on sporting goods exports and imports by product and country
and other topical market segmentation tables e.g. women's
sports, outlet type for footwear. Demographic segmentation
data includes age, head of household, income, and education,
gender, geographic region, and market (city) size.
Currently there are five publications on SGRnet which
are available fulltext. They include: Sporting Goods Business,
SGB's Inside Sporting Goods, Health & Fitness Business,
Golf Retailer and Soccer Business International. The fulltext
articles in each issue can be searched separately using
key words (footwear, apparel, financial etc) or as an
issue by issue basis.
SGRnet presently has over 80 subscribers. Subscription
costs for a single-user access is $450 US, with multi-user
corporate access subscription at $1,000. There also is
a single-user 3 month trial subscription rate of $199.
Session 7 TECHNOLOGY UPDATES
Sport Archives on the Web
James Meier, Librarian, The Sporting News, 10176 Corporate
Squarte Dr. Suite 200, St. Louis, Missouri 63132,
Tel: 314-993-7777 FAX: 314-997-0765
Email: jmeier@sportingnews.com
Website: www.sportingnews.com/archives
Taking the position of a researcher wanting to find archival
and biographical information via the Internet and web
sites for a football player, Mr. Meier outlined three
problems facing the intrepid researcher.
The first is finding sites for organizations which might
have material relevant to the topic. For example if one
is planning to write a book on Ted Coy, a two-time consensus
All-American fullback from Yale University's football
team, it is best to think of where the archival information
may be found before going to the Internet. The two places
to visit would include: SportQuest which indexes other
web sites by subject as does Yahoo, and can be searched
by key word. These sites leads one to organizations including
Yale University archives, the National Collegiate Athletics
Association or the College Football Hall of Fame.
However, the second problem one faces is that many of
these relevant sites do not list their archival materials
in the form of collection registers, inventory lists,
or record descriptions. Many of these sites have focused
their website information for recreational or entertainment
purposes primarily. (Of the Halls of Fame at present only
the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the National
Baseball Hall of Fame have archival inventories or descriptions.
Many others have plans to include more specific listings,
if the resources are found to do this archival work).
More success in this quest is found by using a meta search
utility at the University of Kansas called Profusion.
A key word search uncovers the Joyce Sports Research Collection
at Notre Dame where further information on Ted Coy is
found.
The third problem encountered is that one cannot determine
the exact scope of the collection or quality of information
by using the websites or Internet alone. Scanning, OCR
and other visual reproduction technologies are not available
or economically feasible to many institutions yet so information
on websites is limited. Researchers still have to call
the collection manager to check on the quality of the
materials held.
However, if one differentiates between research and reference
the situation is not that bleak. While there are some
good baseball sites notably John Skilton's Baseball Links
Page, the questions remains, however, as to whether other
sites are run by trained information professionals. At
present, at The Sporting News website, an email address
is listed so that website users can send a message requesting
further facts or indepth materials from basic information
they found on the web site. This and answering letters
and telephone queries are important.
For the future, web sites are being added so quickly
it is difficult to keep up with new sites. For the researcher
being able to locate finding aids for archival holdings
would improve the situation immeasurably. Web sites are
still primarily thought of as marketing or entertainment
tools and the benefits for the organization of putting
collection descriptions are minimal while the time commitment
to put them on the website is not. Virtual copies of the
archival materials would be very good for the researcher
but the technology just isn't good or cheap enough. The
Sporting News included a dozen letters from Ty Cobb to
former owner Taylor Spink. Website reviewers love these
letters and mention them frequently, but no researchers
have written and asked about them for a project as yet.
List of sites mentioned in this presentation:
University
of Idaho's List of Repositories of Primary Sources
Yahoo's
Recreation and Sports Index
Sport Information Resource
Centre's SPORTQuest Index
College
Football Hall of Fame
International Swimming
Hall of Fame
National
Baseball Hall of Fame
National
Track & Field Historical Research Library, Butler
University
Hockey Hall
of Fame Collections Mangement System
National Collegiate Athletic
Association
The Sporting
News Archives
Yale University
Libraries
Profusion
Meta Search Utility, University of Kansas
Joyce
Sports Research Collection, University of Notre Dame
John Skilton's
Baseball Links
Paul
Reeths' USFL site
Session 8 SPORTS EVENTS CALENDARS
The Joys and Tribulations of Editing Chase's Sports
Calendar of Events
Steve Gietschier, The Sporting News, 10176 Corporate Square
Drive,
St. Louis, Missouri 63132, Tel: 314-993-7787
FAX: 314-997-0765 Email: tsnspg@aol.com
Chase's Calendar of Events began publishing in 1958.
In its first year the volume was 32 pages long with 264
entries. Approximately 2000 volumes were sold. By 1983,
a much larger volume by then, about 20,000 volumes were
published. From its inception until recently the publishers
were a family operation, but now Contemporary Books has
purchased the rights. Chase's Calendar of Events is a
"quirky" book in that it includes folkloric
events, mention of special days, short biographical pieces
on American heroes and well-known individuals. The volumes
also contains birthdays, birth and death anniversaries,
plus witticisms and homilies.
Last year the publishers decided to take the sports portion
of the calendar, expand the contents and publish it as
a separate volume. Mr. Gietschier was asked to be the
editor of this new annual called Chase's Sports Calendar.
His introduction to the software used by the company
consisted of a two hour instruction session. One of the
major responsibilities was to define sport and recreation
in keeping with the wishes of the publisher that the volume
would be entertaining as well as informative. Topics,
dates and events include the mainstream sports, plus rodeo,
hot air ballooning, auto, boat and turtle races along
with the Olympic sports. Each date includes a quote or
trivia information which adds to the enjoyment and appeal
of the volume.
The publishers wanted to see the file every month and
as the file grew it was necessary to purchase a zip drive
so the downloading and sending of data did not take an
inordinate amount of time. Along with this, it was necessary
to learn the codes used by typesetters. The deadline for
completion of the project was late October so that the
volume for 1998 could be printed and in the bookstores
for the Christmas buying period. This meant that during
the summer period a large portion of the research and
data entry had to be completed. Now that the volume is
published for 1998, the post-production computer disk
has been sent back so the work on the 1999 volume can
commence.
Session 9 SPORTS EVENTS CALENDARS
Online Sport Calendars
Graham Smith, Sportcal Global Communications, Ltd., Thornton
House,
Thornton Rd. Wimbledon, London, UK SW49 4NG
Tel: (44 181) 944 87 86 Email: grahams@sportcal.co.uk
Website: www.sportcal.co.uk
This international calendar of sports events started
in 1991 with the main focus on the events of the international
sports federations. Clients were supplied with a monthly
update diskette but now the service is online, the number
of events listed are greatly expanded as is the client
base. Sportcal uses Microsoft Access on their server.
Now the database is updated daily. Mr. Smith gave conference
participants an online demonstration to show how it is
organized and accessed for the limited and the full subscription
options.
For those clients on full subscription, the information
on the event includes more than the date, place, contact
person and address. The additional information for full
subscribers includes the official sponsors, host broadcasters,
marketing rights holders. At present there are approximately
14,000 international events listed for about 170 sports
up to the year 2008. Sportcal also cooperates with the
Australian Sports Commission, National Sport Information
Centre in that Sportcal takes responsibility for the international
events, NSIC for regional and local plus the centralization
and marketing of the Australian events databases for the
Australian market.
The client subscription base stands at 130 full service
subscribers. Major clients include the TV industry who
need to plan ahead, bid for broadcast rights and prepare
for events way in advance. The cost for the full yearly
subscription is $1500 US. For access to the basic service,
non-profit organizations pay $500 yearly. Clients can
place a subsciption via email and also pay for a subscription
by credit card.
After the presentation a conference participant asked
what happened to the event information which was removed
from the online database after the date for the event.
There were other comments which also suggested that a
researcher might want to consult the database of past
events. In a message sent after the NASLIN Conference,
Mr. Smith confirmed that Sportcal would be able to keep
this information and make it available online to non-profit
subscribers.
Session 10 TECHNOLOGY UPDATES
The Good, the So-So and the Ugly of Sports Web Sites
Sport Information Resource Centre,
116 Alberts Street (Suite 400), Ontario K1P 5G3
Tel: 613-748-5658 FAX: 613-748-5701 Email: webmaster@sirc.ca
Website: www.sirc.ca
The SPORTQuest website, maintained by the Sport Information
Resource Centre contains more than 14,000 hot links to
other sport and fitness informational web pages. Major
sections include links to the educational programs at
colleges and universities, sports medicine, sport organizations,
sport-specific sites, general sports sites, and commercial
sites. Ms Banks looks at and evaluates a site before adding
it to SPORTQuest. SPORTQuest has recently won three international
awards for best web site (Lycos Top 5%, Snap Online Best
of the Web, and SearchPoint "Cool Site" award.
A number of criteria are used to evaluate a site including:
- how well is it organized
- does it index the contents of the site
- is there information on when the site is updated?
e.g. at the Coaching Science Abstracts site, one is
not certain when new abstracts are added.
- is there a balance between graphics and the quality
of the information. One doesn't necessarily have to
be sacrificed in order to provide the other. A great
web site should have a balance of both content and presentation.
In looking at the "ugly" sites, this does not
necessarily mean they are bad, but web site designers
need to consider the initial, overall impression when
a person first logs on to the site. As an example the
site for weightlifters, Troy and Shawn (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~colemans)
is quite a surprise at first glance when one sees a picture
of these two individuals at first logon.
To keep the SPORTQuest site up to date, software is run
on a regular basis to check the links and find the dead
links. On average as many as 250 sites a month have moved,
changed or are no longer there.
For the future of sport information on the web, with
the ephemeral nature of the Internet it will become more
important for searchers to find a way to organize and
retrieve information found on the web.
For conference participants, Ms Banks handed out a list
of the SPORTQuest Site of the Week Award Winners which
includes over 42 sites. A selection from this list encompasses:
Team Home (database of all professional teams ever to
play in No. America with nicknames, leagues, years in
existence, etc.
Address: http://www.op.net/~flyers13/TeamHome.html
SPORT97 - Sports event calendar (over 25,000 entries
in over 150 categories, major & minor sports)
Address: http://www.sport97.com/
Fundamentals of Strength Training for Sport (a unique
resource site for strength coaches, fitness trainers etc.
- to enhance understanding of sport training sciences)
Address: http://www.myodynamics.com
The Backpacker (finally a true, down and dirty, gritty,
unsanitary, blood pouring, seat falling, peak bagging
internet page)
Address: http://www.thebackpacker.com
The Rower's Resource (The premier source for rowing info.
Lates regatta results, rowing news and info)
Address: http://www.rowerresource.com
Boston Marathon (Official website of the B.A.A. and the
Boston Marathon)
Address: http://www.bostonmarathon.org
For the complete list contact SIRC at the address above.
Session 11 TECHNOLOGY UPDATES
The New SPORTDiscus!
Gilles Chiasson, President, Sport Information Resource
Centre,
116 ALbert Street, suite 400, Ottawa, ON, K1P 5G3
Tel: 613-748-5658 FAX: 613-748-5701
Email:webmaster@sirc.ca
The Sport Information Resource Centre operation is on
its way to financial self sufficiency and it is expected
that SIRC will be in a better position, financially in
one more year's time. A non-profit organization must be
administered as a for-profit business. The only difference
is the shareholders are not paid in a non-profit situation.
SIRC sees their major market in academic institutions.
In the near future there will be many changes and enhancements
to SPORTDiscus including new services and products for
the sport community. The most significant movement will
be toward full text of important periodicals. While a
certain portion of the database will never be available
full text, by May 1998 it is hoped that 20 current journals
will be available on an accompanying CD ROM. SilverPlatter,
the major CD ROM vendor for SPORTDiscus is negotiating
presently with major publishers for fulltext access.
Access to SPORTDiscus will also be enchanced for those
libraries who presently don't hold a subscription to the
CD ROM, but would like to grant access to researchers.
SilverPlatter will mount the database on their own ERL
Server, and libraries can establish deposit accounts for
access via the Internet to the database. This is in concert
with the web access for the OVID Technologies version
of SPORTDiscus via Ebsco services.
In 1998 it is expected that the over 11,000 monographic
database of the Olympic Museum will be added to the CD
ROM disk as a separate database offering. Also in negotiation
is the Spanish sport database from the SPORTCOM consortia.
This database called Atlantis, will also be offered on
the CD ROM as a separate entity. In addition another important
sport database called SPOLIT which contains the German
language research-level periodical articles is another
possible database to be added late in 1998 or 1999.
Session 12 SPORTS STATISTICS
Professional Statisticians Look at Sports
Donald Guthrie, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Psychiatry
and Biostatistics,
University of California at Los Angeles,
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Email: dguthrie@ucla.edu
Dr. Guthrie described the work of the Section on Statistics
in Sports of the American Statistical Association. The
goals of the Section include:
- exploring sports, their results, strategies and rules
- statistical methodology as illustrated by sports
data
- the teaching of statistics
- recreation for its members
The Section has met annually since 1992 and published
their Proceedings (as listed in previous issues of NASLINE,
these are entitled:
Statistics and Sports 1992 $15 member and $23 non members,
Statistics in Sports. 1993 $18 members and $27 non members.
Statistics in Sports, 1994, 77p., $18 Members, $27 non-members
Statistics in Sports, 1995, 61p. $18 Members, $27 non-members
1996 are published but not on their website as yet.
The 1997 Procedings are due to be published in April 1998.
The ASA also publishes a number of periodicals and in
the periodical called, Chance, has articles on a sports
statistics topics are published frequently. (Chance, pub.
by Springer-Verlag, NY, quarterly, v1, 1991- ISSN 0933-2480
Table of contents from v3 + on CARL Uncover)
Also mentioned was the work of the International Statistical
Institute's International Sports Statistics Committee.
This group meets biennually and publishes the papers presented
at the meeting. The focus of this group is the standardization
of participation statistics. The ISSC has met since 1993
(Florence), and Beijing 1995, Istanbul 1997 and will meet
in Helsinki 1999. The bibliographic details on the proceedings
are:
International Sports Statistics Committee:
Improving evaluation of sports through statistics: papers
from the first meeting of the International Sports Statistics
Committee, Rome: CONI, Italian National Olympic committee,
Documentation and Information Division, 1994. 203p.
Challenges ahead for improving sports statistics:
proceedings and papers from the second meeting of the
ISI Sports Statistics Committee, Beijing, 1995. Rome,
CONI, Italian National Olympic Committee, Documentation
and Information Division, 1996. 263p.
References:
American Statistical Association, 1429 Duke St.,
Alexandria, VA 22314-3415 Tel:703-684-4515 FAX:703-684-2037
Website: http://www.amstat.org
The Section on Statistics in Sports website is:
http://www.stat.duke.edu/~box/sis/
Also recommended as a book on sports statistics
which has an excellent bibliography:
Mussino, Antonio. Statisca e sport. Rome, Societa Stampa
Sportiva, 1997
Tour of the Los Angeles Public Library
Leader: Ms. Romaine Ahlstrom, Manager, Art, Music, Recreation
and Rare Books The conference participants were bused
to the central library of the Los Angeles Public Library
system. This magnificent structure, in the California
art deco style, is a stunning visual experience and contains
the main research collection of the library system. The
LAPL had a policy of purchasing at least two copies of
many books, with one copy always available for consultation
on site. Sport serial holdings include some classic English
titles (Bailey's magazine of sports and pastimes) as well
as mainstream US sport-related titles. The Rare Books
collection was enhanced recently with a large collection
of books and memorabilia on bull fighting. A selection
of items from this collection were available for viewing
by conference participants.
The LAPL catalogue is available via the Internet. Not
all their holdings are in full format but many are. Address
is:http://www.lapl.org
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