Start Year: 2012 – End Year: 2014

Organization of documentation of Catalan exile: the archive of the Casal Català in Montevideo

Previously, several contacts had been made with the CCM, which allowed us to learn about the existing documentary volume, the different types of documents it contains and, above all, the state of conservation, which was apparently not adequate, because it had been moved several times and damaged the collections. For this reason, when we started the collaboration, we already had a study of the archives carried out by the collaborator Fina Solà in 2006. The most important documentation is: the Minutes from its foundation in 1926 to the present day, the series of correspondence, the accounting books, the bulletins (it preserves, for example, most of the issues of the “Manelic”) and, as for the photographs, although there are not a large number, many of them are important because they refer to the visits of the various Presidents of the Generalitat and some important activities.

On this occasion, the tasks to be carried out consisted of digitizing the documentary collections with a dual purpose: to ensure that the National Archive of Catalonia has a copy of the Casal documentation and to prevent the degradation of the media, which in many cases is already at a very advanced stage. To begin the collaboration, the cooperator Imma Moratalla moved to Montevideo, who was there from December 11 to 20, 2012. Her task was to transfer the hardware and software that would allow digitization to be carried out and, above all, to establish the guidelines for organization, classification and description of the documentation, as well as continuing from Barcelona with the control and collection of data.

To carry out the project, the Casal Català de Montevideo has been involved, especially its director, Maria Gispert, and the invaluable collaboration of Archiveros sin Fronteras Uruguay, which has assigned a collaborator, David Pérez, to carry out the digitization, classification and description of the collection.

The project was completed in 2014 and the official presentation of the project is planned for 2015, with the delivery of the documentation to the National Archive of Catalonia.