GLAM/Newsletter/October 2015/Contents/Italy report
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The history of Fascism in Italian libraries
Mussolini Digital Library
During this month, mostly dedicated to WLM work, a new project with libraries was announced too. The Fondazione Casa Oriani Contemporary History Library in Ravenna, dating back to 1927, holds in its collection the Mussolini Library, a unique collection of historical books and periodicals of the time, both in favour and against the regime.
The Library, in its ongoing work of the collection rearrangement, decided to digitize and upload to Internet Archive and Italian Wikisource as many books and magazines as possible, beginning from the texts you can see here, a work from Quaderni fascisti collection, and Gioventù italiana del littorio by the secretary of the Fascist Party during the Thirties Achille Starace.
Mussolini Library (the original historical name of Oriani Library) is one of the most relevant source of information about fascism period and ideology in Italy, and the digitazion of its materials is supposed to be very useful for historians all over the world.
Moreover, the fact that a GLAM-wiki project comes together with the main process of reorganization of the collection by the Library, is for us an important sign of interest from Italian libraries and a model to follow for others too in the future.
The project was officially presented to the public on October 17th in Ravenna, and mentioned in the press.
great accomplishment!
Thanks for sharing this update with all of us, Virginia! Congratulations on this accomplishment. It is great to see the Mussolini library digitizing its rare materials. These efforts will greatly expand access to materials from the fascist time period in Italian history. Keep us posted on how these materials get used once they are on Wikisource! KLove (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
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