Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Rumble in the Stacks, the Anarchy in the Archives, the Chaos in the Complex! Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is the first ever Archives Month cage match among the heroes and heroines in the collections of the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming! Why? Because we can, and because it seems like fun.
Here’s approximately how it works: Just as in college basketball, there will be paired sets of contestants, four brackets on one side, representing historical characters, and four brackets on the other side, representing fictional characters. All the characters are strongly represented in the collections of the AHC, and are linked to catalog records or inventories proving information about them or their creators.
What determines which contestants move forward to the next round? You decide! We have tried to pair the contestants as evenly as possible, by our own lights, but with your votes you can make it an easy victory or a narrow defeat. Yes, you can vote for your favorite combatants, but you must tell us why your man or woman would defeat his or her opponent. Superior brains? Better skills? More awesome powers? Some other characteristic? You tell us!
Final determination of each round’s finalists ultimately rests on the AHC’s decision, but you are welcome to persuade us to side with your favorites!
Who’s in the first round (or as we like to call it, the Western Roundup)?
- Shane vs. The Virginian
- Hopalong Cassidy vs. The Cisco Kid
- Buffalo Bill vs. Tom Horn
- Nellie Tayloe Ross vs. Grace Raymond Hebard
Stay tuned this week! Each day, we’ll be posting key information about each opponent that may help you make your decision, if you haven’t yet made up your mind.
How do you play? You have several choices! (1) Vote for your top contender by responding in the Comments section of this blog post, or (2) Comment on our Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/ahcwyo] or (3) Email ahc@uwyo.edu with your picks (but remember, “Rumble in the Stacks” must be in your subject line!) This first round closes October 7th at high noon!
Have fun, and remember, archives are awesome!
This contest is sponsored by the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The AHC is UW’s manuscripts repository, rare books library, and official archives. We are one of the largest and best-used university repositories in the nation, and have received the highest honor possible for a US archives: the Society of American Archivists’ Distinguished Service Award.
The AHC is open to the public five days a week, offering approximately 3000 collections, totaling 75,000 cubic feet and 65,000 volumes of rare books. In addition to superb holdings on the American West, the AHC also collections nationally in the areas of the entertainment industry, journalism, military history, conservation, economic geology, ranching, aviation and aeronautics, and more.
The AHC has a website which contains, among other things, 125,000 digitized items from our collections: photos, letters, speeches, sound recordings, maps, posters, moving images, and more. Please visit us at http://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/ or in person in Laramie on the UW campus.
