The Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum, an OSA partner, was recently awarded a Trillium Grant for one year to fund an exciting project to digitize areas of the collection and create an interactive engaging Virtual Exhibition focusing on the legacy of the women's game in Canada. The Soccer Hall of Fame is pleased to announce that Colin Crawford has been hired as a Digitization Coordinator for the project.

1. The Cataloging, research and digitization of the women’s soccer archival collection 

2. The creation of an exciting Virtual Exhibition portal that will allow the collection to be shared, viewed and explored by the public 

The Women’s Soccer Archival Collection consists of irreplaceable photographs, game day programs and posters, film footage as well as other important textual documents. As with the Artifact Collection, this archival collection through the assistance of the Trillium Foundation will be systematically sorted, researched where necessary, cataloged, scanned and entered into the Collection Management software program, “Past Perfect”. This important and necessary process will ensure that each valuable archival item has a complete record. These records will allow the collection to be easily searched and accessed.

To enable the community to view the collection, a Virtual Exhibit will be created and accessed through the museum’s website. Staff will work with a Graphic/Web Designer and Volunteer Historian to develop this interactive experience. The exhibit will make use of the archival material to tell the history of women’s soccer in the GTA as well as on a National scale, capturing the excitement of the upcoming 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup that will be, for the first time, hosted in Canada.

Women’s soccer has an interesting history but has exploded on the scene in the last few years. The success of the Women’s National Team at the Olympic Games in 2012, led to a never before sold out match two months later held at BMO Field.

The excitement at this game, families dressed in red and white to watch our Canadian women play, brought the women’s game to a level that had not been previously attained. This has been evident with the increase in girls’ soccer registrations and the inquiries that the museum has received.

Currently the museum houses the largest, most complete record of women’s soccer not only regionally but nationally as well, unfortunately it is presently not accessible to the general public. There is a need to explore this history and put the archival collection into the hands of those who love it most, the community that the museum serves. Crawford will do just that. 

The project will not only preserve the archival collection for generations to come but will allow the public to have instant access to information that they need thus providing a centralized, easy to navigate self-service resource that connects key stakeholders across the country.

The project meets several areas of the Trillium's Strategic Framework with regard to broadening participation and engagement in arts and culture and leveraging the power of the arts and cultural activities for positive social change, community building or economic impact.

The preservation and digitization of the women's archival soccer collection will ensure that this valuable and rare history is preserved for future generations to experience, easily access and learn from. The Virtual Exhibition component of the project will enable the community to take pride in the cultural aspect of the women's game in our province and country, how we have achieved our successes and future expectations with many girls able to connect with the story that is being told in a positive way that will assist in building confidence in themselves and what they can achieve.