The Joyce Sports Research Collection: Basketball

What follows is a guide to some of the more significant materials pertaining to basketball held in Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame. It does not include basketball materials held elsewhere in the Hesburgh Libraries, or in Notre Dame's University Archives. Its purpose is to provide researchers with a convenient overview of Special Collections' resources in this subject area; it does not aspire to be comprehensive. Items listed in these finding aids do not circulate; they may be requested and consulted in Special Collections, 102 Hesburgh Library, from 9:30am to 4:30pm weekdays. Researchers interested in materials specifically relating to basketball at Notre Dame should contact University Archives, 607 Hesburgh Library.

Title or collection descriptions on this page are linked to records, inventories, and other appropriate types of finding aid. The dates that follow many of the annual and periodical titles on this page indicate the span of years a given title was published; available holdings are indicated in the linked finding aid. Questions concerning the materials on the page may be directed to the curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Greg Bond.

Books

• RBSC houses all the Libraries' earlier and scarcer sports related titles, including those with a bearing on basketball. Most of these volumes predate 1970. All may be searched in the Libraries' online catalog.

Annuals — guide format

• Holdings of the Spalding (1894/95-1940/41), Barnes (1941/42-1949/50), and National Collegiate Athletic Association (1951- ) annual men's basketball guides. These titles are generally regarded as the key annuals on men's college basketball — though in the early years Spalding covered other levels of the amateur game as well, most notably high school, YMCA, and AAU basketball. From 1905/06 to 1914/15 Spalding supplemented its college coverage with an additional publication, Spalding's Official Collegiate Basket Ball Guide. From around 1910/1911 through 1924/1925 Spalding published its Official Basket Ball Guide in both Eastern and Western editions: these generally contain significant amounts of mutually exclusive material.

• Holdings of the Reach Official Basket Ball Guide (1901/02-1926/27) from 1906/07. The Reach guide is particularly important for its coverage of the early professional game, something Spalding ignores.

• Holdings of the annual basketball guides of the Amateur Athetlic Union of the U.S. (AAU).
  
  
• Holdings of the Sporting News National Basketball Association (1958/59- ) and American Basketball Association (1968/69-1975/76) annual guides.

• Holdings of the Spalding (1900-1937/38) and AAHPER (1938/39- ) annual women's basketball guides. Both these annuals were aimed at physical educators, and consist primarily of rules, standards, and instructional material promulgated by the women's sections of organizations like the American Physical Education Association and the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
  

Annuals — magazine format

• A collection of magazine format annuals devoted wholly or primarily to men's college basketball in the US. Many different titles are represented. While college coverage is generally emphasized, many of these titles also include sections on the professionals.

• A collection of magazine format annuals devoted wholly or primarily to men's professional basketball in the US.

• Holdings of Basketball's Best (1951/52-1972/73). This "NBA Pictorial Review" is one of the better sources on the league's first two decades; it's especially valuable for its write-ups of individual players.

• Holdings of the Converse Basketball Yearbook (1922-1983). The Yearbook includes features and statistics on high school, college, professional, and international basketball. It is valued today both for its attractive layout and for its informative and often idiosyncratic content.

Yearbooks and media guides

• A collection of approximately 5600 men's college basketball team media guides, 1940s to date. In the years since World War II these guides, like their football counterparts, have evolved dramatically, from typed and mimeographed sheets to highly informative trade paper publications readily available to the public. Also, a collection of around 700 college winter sports media guides; these typically emphasize men's basketball (and generally function as the publishing school's basketball media guide), but also contain information on other traditional winter sports.

• A collection of men's college basketball conference media guides, 1950/51 to date.

• A collection of around 750 women's college basketball team media guides, mostly from the 1990s and early 2000s. More than 200 programs are represented.

• A collection of around 500 men's professional basketball team media guides, 1948/49 to 2000/01, representing clubs in the National Basketball Association, the American Basketball Association, and the Basketball Association of America.

• A collection of around 100 National Basketball Association team yearbooks, mostly from the 1990s.

Programs

• A collection of about 2600 men's college basketball programs, dating for the most part from 1940 to 1975. Approximately 600 of these were produced for tournaments, doubleheaders, or other events involving four or more teams. Larger and smaller schools from all parts of the United States are represented, with some emphasis on institutions from California. A finding aid for these materials is pending.

• A collection of around 1150 men's professional basketball game programs, mostly from the late 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. About one thousand of these involve teams from the National Basketball Association (1949/50- ), though a number of other leagues are represented as well, including the National Basketball League (1937/38-1948/49), the Basketball Association of America (1946/47-1948/49), and the American Basketball Association (1967/68-1975/76). Also included is a small group of All-Star Game programs from the NBA and ABA.

Special Collections

• A small collection of items on the Harlem Globetrotters professional basketball team. Materials include promotional photographs and literature, game programs, and a collection of the team's annual yearbooks, complete from 1947/48 to 1971.