Memoirs writing

The Claudia Augusta Library has dedicated many years of careful work to the recovery of diaries, memoirs, written records, manuscripts, photographs and varied documents which reconstruct Alto Adige's local history from a point of view other than the scientific-traditional. The Library`s Memoirs writing section takes care of and catalogues all collected documents, which can now be referred to on-line. Everyone of you can hand his/her own "history" over!

Dr.Christian Tommasini - Vicepresidente della provincia
Assessore all'edilizia abitativa,cultura, scuola e formazione professionale in lingua italiana

Memoirs writing in the Library

The generations' poor memory strengthens legends - Stanislaw J.Lec

Reality does not come true other than in memory - Marcel Proust

To remember, to forget, to re-elaborate or to remove are individual -but often also collective- choices; they express a well defined position towards events, people or facts that have had a significant impact on our personal or collective life.
Memory is therefore a dual concept, which expresses itself on a personal and collective level, but also in a temporal dimension. It can concern remembrance, fixed at once or recorded, photographed... in concomitance with the event, or as a journey backwards : a journey through our own experiences, a revision of events and people, after a period of time.
Recently, Memoirs writing is experiencing a new impulse within the literary panorama through autobiographies, collective writings, manuscripts, tales and diaries. All these literary expressions often share the same themes and purposes, in the effort to fix memories and recontruct them, in order to regain possession of them and to be able to hand them down to others.
Undoubtedly some important details, very useful in the reconstruction of a historical period, can be determined through Memoirs writing; or, at least, Memoirs writing can illustrate an actual and realistic cross-section of a particular time. Of course, the documentary evidence will not be traditional and scientific: it will consist of spontaneous statements by individuals or groups, which hand over images and emotions, tightly bound to a precise event or historical time.
Since 2003, the Claudia Augusta provincial Library has started a long and detailed work in the search of remembrance and local Memoirs writing. The Library is in charge of building a collection with strong ties to the territory, and has therefore involved its users in several meetings (2003) on the theme of memory and identity, which have been very successful.
Considered the activity's positive result, a video-interviews project was started in 2004: a sort of oral archives ( in accordance with the UNESCO guidelines for Libraries), now consisting in more than 150 video-interviews to personalities who are -or have been- influent in different fields of local life.
The Memoirs writing Section is part of this process of local documentation and reconstruction: it collects writings of different extents, which can be consulted in the original written form or on-line, in the dedicated section.
The Claudia Augusta Library intends to continue in the work of recovery, care and promotion of Memoirs writing by acquiring, cataloguing and publishing the documents on-line: these documents can contribute in showing a more human and everyday facet of our collective history.

Available material