The U.S. Women’s Rugby Foundation (USWRF) has embarked on a three-year project to gather, digitize and archive the artifacts and stories of women’s rugby in the United States.
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to remember, honor, and preserve the past and ongoing history of the women's rugby community in the U.S. and ensure that it is available to the public.
Objectives
To collect documents and photos for digitization and submission for inclusion at the Library of Congress.
To borrow rugby artifacts for periodic displays and exhibits.
To tape and transcribe oral histories with particular focus on sectors of the community that are not well represented in digitized documentation.
Create a digital presence that showcases ongoing progress of the project.
First Stage Needs (1970-1999)
Documentation - tournament programs, newspaper articles, club/team notes and governance documents, letters and communication, old team films etc. (Names and contacts of early women administrators, team founders, coaches and referees)
Photographs - photographs with good resolution, negatives or digitized photographs.
Oral History - if teams have collected oral histories or video histories or have suggestions for someone we should record please contact us
Unique rugby artifacts - materials (jerseys, trophies, quilts, etc.) please include an explanation of the artifact including names, dates, anything of personal meaning that gives depth to an experience
Steps to Contribute
Please contact us to discuss the relevance, content, and packaging of materials.
All materials will be returned after digitizing/exhibiting
Volunteer Support Needed
If you would like to be work with the project we are looking for the following:
Collections and Digitization Intern (2+ years experience, in process of library science or similar degree)
Grant writer (experience with grants for public library creation a plus)
Collecting and recording oral histories (experience with or interest in video, audio recordings)
Contacts
Katherine (Kat) Aversano
Curator and digital project SME, rugby coach & admin
Kerri Heffernan
WRCRA chair, former Brown University faculty member & coach
Please share this post with your rugby networks. Here is a downloadable PDF as well.
Thank you!
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