Joel and Levi from our Bill McLaren Archive project report on their work opening up the archives of ‘the voice of rugby.’
Bill McLaren (1923-2010) was widely known as the ‘voice of rugby’. He was a regular commentator on television and radio, enjoying a career spanning over fifty years before retiring in 2002. McLaren’s talent and passion was not limited to commentary – he was a regular contributor to written sports journalism, author of multiple books, highly regarded PE teacher to both primary and secondary pupils, a keen golfer, a family man and a lover of his hometown – Hawick.
His personal collection – one of the largest archives of rugby union in Scotland – is managed in a partnership between the Bill McLaren Foundation and Live Borders at the Heritage Hub in Hawick. The University of Stirling Archives has entered into an exciting agreement with these organisations to open access to the Bill McLaren Archive through a programme of cataloguing, digitisation, engagement and exhibition.
This is where we come in – Karl Magee (University Archivist), Joel Casey (Digitisation Assistant) and Levi Tippett (PhD Student and Intern). We’re sorting through, organising and digitising the materials from the collection with the primary goal of making them available for a larger audience across Scotland and beyond. Coinciding with the project, we’ll also be producing a series of blog posts which will explore a range of interesting themes related to the project.
Interested to find out more? Here’s a little more detail on the key features of the project.
Cataloguing the archive:
McLaren’s personal collection comprises a wide range of materials, including but in no way limited to commentaries he wrote on sporting events in his teen years, military service documents from World War 2, and contracts to provide voiceovers for commentary in rugby video games!
Our first task was to sort the materials into manageable categories which would provide the basis for a numbering system. The varied correspondence that McLaren sent and received makes up a large part of the collection, so we began by breaking this down into key parts:
- Correspondence with the BBC
- Other official correspondence
- Personal correspondence and fan mail
- Family correspondence
- Correspondence with Jock Wemyss (rugby player and commentator)
- Correspondence with the Scottish Rugby Union
- Correspondence relating to his teaching career
The rest of the collection was organised as follows:
- Rugby related material (International / Club / Scottish Rugby Union)
- Press cuttings
- Photographs
- Personal memorabilia (including early life / army service / teaching career)
These categories aren’t entirely comprehensive – some of the ‘fan mail’, for instance, falls well short of complimentary! The categories do, however, provide a basis for tracking progress, managing the collection and ensuring the collection will be accessible once digitised. Additional support sorting and organising the collection has been provided by Stirling County Rugby Club’s rugby memories group who have visited the university for a number of ‘archive scrum’ sessions.
Digitisation:
The key component of this project is digitisation. Once sorted and numbered, the materials can be digitised using the University of Stirling’s ScanStudio – an incredibly powerful (really, it is) and near-unique scanning tool! The ScanStudio, and accompanying OmniScan software, enables us to work through a large amount of material efficiently, accurately and comprehensively. The paper materials are loaded onto the scanning table, the glass plate is lowered (which flattens said materials, straightening out creases and folds), and then a high-quality digital scan is taken from above. The images can be edited automatically – with features that enable deskewing (straightening), cropping, and rotating as just a few examples. The resultant images are high-quality, digital resources that can be used for exhibitions, promotional materials or educational activities.
Next steps:
Over the coming months we will continue to work with the Stirling County Rugby Club rugby memories group. Their contributions are central to our exhibition plans. The details are still a work in progress, but you can expect to see personal recollections, interests and anecdotes from the volunteers. More details to follow in future blog posts!
Joel Casey & Levi Tippett
