The current Geography section of the Library of the Department Lettere e Culture Moderne (LCM) contains geo-documental and cartographic heritage collected since 1875. Over 15,000 objects (maps, models, globes, tellurs, epidiascopes, glass photographic plates, atlases and rare books, etc.) have been the subject of restoration, digitization and metadata interventions for about a decade with the aim of fully recovering their cultural value activating practices of reuse and giving new meaning, which allow an effective and complete patrimonialization. This proposal intends to further structure the process on the level of knowledge organization in order to build "other" narratives, different from the past not only on a diachronic level, but also because they are attentive to historically neglected and/or unrecognized areas and dimensions, integrating the perspective of gender and postcolonial studies. We will then proceed with the creation of thematic, experiential, interdisciplinary path, designed to be used and enjoyed through interactive tools to be placed on equipment already acquired thanks to previous University funding (55'' interactive pixxboard, 43'' interactive totem and 86" professional monitor). Through the creation of geo-cartographic tools, storymaps for images, video reconstructions and interviews with privileged testimonies, the research intends to put a value on the geo-documental and cartographic heritage of the Department in order to rethink and reshape the founding ideas and thoughts of a pivotal discipline, such as geography, which fulfills in the training of the younger generations the indispensable social function of critical knowledge that cannot be substituted for the understanding of territorial complexity, so that they themselves acquire and make their own basic projects to establish themselves as "citizens of the world".
The innovativeness of the project concerns several aspects, first of all, the approach that is intended to be given to the realization of the courses and to the training activities which are not only a simple and integrative appendix of the traditional forms of teaching and exposure, but are perceived as a real revolution in patrimonialization and enhancement processes. Through the activation of collaborations with experts, we intend to deepen the possibility of using static and moving sounds and images which, with their load of meanings and emotions, will allow to study the territory, highlighting its symbolic, identity, semantic and structural aspects, allowing to reconstruct the vision of the world under different and diversified profiles.
Another innovative aspect still not fully investigated in relation to geography and the process of enhancing the geo-documental heritage is the study of images and images, past and recent, motionless and in motion, for the creation of biographies of places and spaces. . We want to implement a project that integrates different actions aimed at the promotion, use and enhancement of the reference heritage through the narration that allows to tell the geography, the territory, the landscape related to other areas and themes and of fundamental importance according to a feminine declination, researching and recounting the role of geographers in the discipline since 1877 in our University. Through the acquisition of direct and indirect evidence, research in the historical archives of the University, we intend to deepen the gender issue on study and research paths in space and time through the geo-documentary heritage of the Geography Library, addressed by the geographers who first collaborated with the geography cabinet and later with the geography institute.This research is made up of women geographers who involuntarily were geographers in the field and not geographers at the table (Rossi, 2015), and the construction of the narrative wants to return to these women, in spite of themselves placed on the margins of writing the role that must necessarily be recognized in the organization of knowledge of the discipline.
The research and the application and dissemination of the results will have an innovative approach thanks to the connection between the geo-documentary heritage and the literary landscapes that can be reconnected maps and geovisual heritage, a joint work that will lead to the identification of visual representations referable to literary contexts.
From a strictly technological perspective, multimedia will be used, a valuable contribution to better learning and a different use of the cultural asset.
At present, the geo-visual and cartographic heritage is digitally collected in a webstorage in the digital exhibition ... which from the point of view of innovation presents a unique peculiarity in the panorama of digitization processes, namely that of the geolocation of photographic glass plates. The main subject depicted in the plates, in the cataloging process, is associated with the geographical coordinates that are positioned on a virtual planisphere for the geospatial association of the phenomenon with reference to the place where it occurs. The project will make it possible to carry out this activity which currently concerns about 10% of the images.
It is evident (and many concrete experiences throughout Europe show it) that through these process and product innovations it is thus possible to socially reactivate and concretely reuse many assets and ensure that the cultural heritage in general and the geo-documentary one in particular, is intended as an engine of economic growth and social inclusion.
From this perspective, shared revitalization becomes a significant means of action that can contribute to the construction of the city's identity, capable of increasing its attractiveness. If well managed, it can also trigger the development of activities for creativity, culture, community interaction and social integration objectives of implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Culture, understood as a constitutive element of a territory, can represent a determining factor for development and, at the same time, economic and entrepreneurial choices aimed at the protection and enhancement of assets can become instrumental for the safeguarding and dissemination of knowledge and culture (University of Macerata, 2011).