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indireinforma

13 giugno 2018

The catalogue of Indire’s antique children’s book collection is now online

On Tuesday 12 June, the catalogue “For fun and for real. Recreational and literary books of  Indire’s antique children’s book collection” was presented in Florence.

The publication was compiled by Pamela GiorgiIrene Zoppi and Marta Zangheri, and catalogues the about 550 volumes and the 58 periodicals (including more than 3thousand issues) published between the beginning of 1800 and the first half of 1900 and included in Indire’s antique children’s book collection, an almost unique reality in Italy, testifying to the birth and development of children’s literature and publishing houses specialised in the sector.

The presentation was introduced by Diana Marta Toccafondi, responsible of the Archival Superintendency for Tuscany who thanked Indire for the support it provides to the preservation of the historical heritage. Pamela Giorgi introduced the bi-annual analysis of the Indire’s historical archive from which the catalogue was created. According to the researcher « The cataloguing of the antique book collection is part of the requalification process of the entire Indire’s bibliographical-documentary legacy. Hopefully, this first classification step will be only the first of a series of activities favouring its valorisation and knowledge also through the online publication of the institute’s entire book heritage».

The Curators, Marta Zangheri and Irene Zoppi took a look-back at the most representative books of the collection, which tell the transformation story of education: from moralising education to education through fun, emphasising the crucial role of imagines testifying to this educational evolution. The event concluded with the greetings of Carla Ida Salviati, one of the main Italian experts of children’s literature and member of the jury of the 2018 Andersen award.