SWOSU Al Harris Library Awarded 2026 Oklahoma Heritage Preservation Grant

The Al Harris Library at SWOSU

The Al Harris Library at Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) has received an Oklahoma Heritage Preservation Grant from the Oklahoma Historical Society. The $24,967 award for "Digitization of Special Collections, Phase Three," is a project focused on preserving media from the SWOSU Athletics Collection.

The work converts film reels to digital recordings, and the original film is cleaned to help it last longer. The project provides access to football game recordings not publicly viewed in decades. Members of the university community, especially alumni, will have a new opportunity to see small pieces of SWOSU's past.

The SWOSU Digital Commons dashboard shows 4,008 downloads and activity from 116 countries for the SWOSU football video collection as of Sept. 2, 2026. The collection was digitized with grant funding from the Oklahoma Historical Society.

The completion of this digitization project is part of the long-term goals associated with the General Thomas P. Stafford Archive to digitize all analog media held within the archive facility. About one-third of the archive's historical content has been digitized so far.

As SWOSU celebrates its 125th anniversary, the Al Harris Library is sharing rediscovered films from the university's athletic past. Football game recordings from 1973 to 1985 are available at dc.swosu.edu/football_vid. The collection has received more than 4,000 downloads, with activity recorded in 116 countries.

Digital copies of SWOSU athletic competitions from previous projects are also available at dc.swosu.edu/ath_media.

To learn more about SWOSU's General Thomas P. Stafford Archive, visit https://stafford.swosu.edu.

About Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) was founded in 1901 and offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs across three locations in Weatherford, Sayre, and Yukon. The university serves more than 5,000 students and prides itself on affordability, small class sizes, and over 200 faculty and staff committed to helping students achieve their academic and personal goals.

For more information about Southwestern Oklahoma State University, visit www.swosu.edu.