Digital Sport History: History and Practice

Abstract

From the digitization of analogue physical materials, to the recovery of materials stored on early media formats like floppy disks, to the harvesting of web and social media platforms that document the hundreds of thousands of sports forums and events, sport historians of the future will certainly have to confront digital artifacts and platforms when they write sport history. The entry point for most sport historians to digital sport history is through the consumption of digital resources in the form of digital archives and digital libraries. Digitization has enabled the identification of sport history sources in far-flung locales through digital catalogues, finding aids, and digital repositories. Digital project demonstrations at annual meetings, born-digital publications enabled by editors of press series and flagship journals, and the inclusion of peer-review of digital projects without hesitancy would go a long way to moving digital sports history from the periphery to the mainstream of our scholarly practice.