Has Anyone Had Any Success Getting Artifacts through Writing the NFL HOF?

[PaulDeVos]

I don't think you can "get artifacts" but you can request access to view and examine them, many authors do just that (Peter King in his latest book talks about that very experience)-and via letter to request access to their archives as it needs to be for legitimate research need and not just fan looking to see it in person.

Thank you Paul. Do you know if there's any special "language" that needs to be done to make sure it's taken as "research" -- I have yet to really publish anything on a blog or a book, but I have 100s of "analysis" I've done and have almost digitized the entire gamebooks we have (and others I've collected from NFL teams). But to date, I may still only qualify as a "fan"... would love any feedback on this if you have any. Again, appreciate the info on Peter King's experience.

[PaulDeVos]

So what’s it like to try to get a request from NFL Films?

Ten,

I haven't... have you ever tried writing them? Do you know if they have artifacts other than film? I know Dan Endy Sr (MN Vikings statistician for 45+ years) was instrumental in starting NFL films and he contributed artifacts, not film. So maybe?

I may try to find a resource, see if they will respond to me. Appreciate the idea!!

[PaulDeVos]

Or a lot of video footage that is not publicly available now but perhaps one day could be made so online?

I don't think they have any video footage. I would expect that all is with NFL Films.

From the couple of times I've been there, I can tell you that, while they do have a lot of stuff hidden back there, they don't have anything close to a full collection of books/programs/magazines. So you're unlikely to find any play-by-plays from them. I think most of what they have is game-used stuff, because that room is enormous, yet only a small portion is devoted to books and written things. But I could be wrong, because obviously I don't work there and haven't been there enough times to memorize everything. All I'm saying is that you'd be surprised at how much they have yet to collect and that you may be holding in your collection stuff that they don't have.

Correct on film. Everything was given to NFL Films. As far as other stuff, they have it broken down into two areas: Documents/publications/flat files in one area, then 3D stuff (artifacts) in another area. While they do not have complete collections (for example, media guides have holes), they do have a good amount of stuff. Honestly, they do not even know what all they have. I have been there a few times researching for my new book and have surprised them with some of the things that I found. They asked me to pull out things specifically related to HOFers and they immediately digitized it and cataloged it. However, they have so much stuff that they are not able to do that for everything. It will take a long time to get to everything.

@ken

Great share. Appreciate that. Do you know if anyone has already made requests for gamebooks? or weekly summaries around individual defensive statistics (e.g. 1961 to 1981) sort of requests?

Also, while I've been a member here of PFRA for 13 years, I don't have any publications. I have a lot of analytics, metrics, and tons of digitized data (it's taken me literally over a decade of working on media guides, gamebooks to get where I am close to a complete data set for gamebooks/media guides I have) -- but no actual publications to date and I haven't kept a blog. Will that be a deterrent to these requests? Would they still take my request as a "researcher" versus just a "fan"?

[RichardBak]

Hey Paul, you don't need to be published. You've done tons of serious research---well, that makes you a researcher. You're also a fan, which is why you're doing the research. So consider yourself "legit." The hall handles all requests w/o asking for a resume or CV.

[conace21]

I don't think you can "get artifacts" but you can request access to view and examine them, many authors do just that (Peter King in his latest book talks about that very experience)-and via letter to request access to their archives as it needs to be for legitimate research need and not just fan looking to see it in person.

Thank you Paul. Do you know if there's any special "language" that needs to be done to make sure it's taken as "research" -- I have yet to really publish anything on a blog or a book, but I have 100s of "analysis" I've done and have almost digitized the entire gamebooks we have (and others I've collected from NFL teams). But to date, I may still only qualify as a "fan"... would love any feedback on this if you have any. Again, appreciate the info on Peter King's experience.

What about writing an article for the PFRA's magazine the Coffin Corner? You'll want to set the topic with Greg Tranter, but that is legitimate.

[Throwin_Samoan]

So what’s it like to try to get a request from NFL Films?

My only entreaty - in which I identified myself as a PFRA member and researcher with what I thought was a legitimate request, not for them to give me a game or anything like that, just check something - went unanswered.

I would imagine you would have to know someone.

[Mark]

So what’s it like to try to get a request from NFL Films?

My only entreaty - in which I identified myself as a PFRA member and researcher with what I thought was a legitimate request, not for them to give me a game or anything like that, just check something - went unanswered.

I would imagine you would have to know someone.

NFL Films used to have a special order program but I think they got rid of that, perhaps since now you can find much of what they sold on YouTube. You had to pay the cost for them to make a copy just for you which was $50.00 each DVD years ago.