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The Rome Provincial Library, with the approval of the Councillor for Cultural Policy and the Councillor for Scholastic Policy of the Province of Rome, and the support of the Lazio Regional Schools Department proposed to all the State Upper Schools in the Province of Rome, the project called “Schools and local history: lines of research in the local area”, for scholastic year 2005-2006, with continuation in 2006-2007.

Students, teachers and librarians are the protagonists of this project;
The schools and the scholastic and municipal libraries, together with the Province of Rome as the local authority above municipal level, are the protagonists of the project.

The following aims have been established for the students by the Rome Provincial Library:
 
              - Education in the use of written and oral documentary sources;
              - Increasing knowledge about the Province as a local institution with its historic and present role;
              - Bringing young people closer to the local area through research, collection and study of documents regarding history, art, the environment, geography, demographics and anthropology;

              - Enhancing in the students the perception of the identity in the community where they live and where they prepare themselves to exercise their rights and duties as citizens, enhancing the sense of belonging and a collective identity beyond their town.

The aim of the lines of research is to produce results on the type of support freely chosen (paper, CDs, photos, videos and other), for which the Provincial Library provides ample dissemination in libraries, schools and cultural institutions as new and original documents on local history.
In particular, in the 2-year period 2005-2007, the project supported documentary research in the local libraries and archives to implement research lines in the following fields:
                - History of the local institutions and community
                - Cultural and environmental heritage
                - Popular traditions, local customs.

As a service for teachers and librarians, the Provincial Library organized, in collaboration with the local libraries, series of meetings with experts qualifying as updating courses in
                - Methodology of historical research
                - Archival research
                - Research on demographic and anthropological resources and oral memory.

The role of the Libraries

The school librarians are asked to provide the students with specific services, and also to undertake a role of intermediation to facilitate and support the activities of the teachers.

The key points of the collaboration network on the local level are the libraries in the towns, which have the task of linking the activities through direct contact with the Schools, through the school officials, teachers and school librarians, and by providing library services and the distribution of bibliographical material to teachers and students.
Furthermore, in the start-up phase of the project, they are asked to make their own proposals regarding the subjects and activities regarding the project. They then provide operational intermediation with the Provincial Library.
The librarians can work with Middle and Upper State Schools in the towns involved, while networking with the other local libraries and cultural institutions.

The Provincial Library plays a proactive role, as an organizational reference point, providing a service to all institutions involved, besides having a function for the overall, grassroots coordination of all the phases of the project.
Furthermore, it makes its own modern bibliographical resources available through the Inter-Library Lending Service and provides useful bibliographical tools for the research.

Events

1.      - The official start-up took place with the presentation of the project at Palazzo Valentini on 7 November 2005.

2.      - The products completed in the first year, both paper and multimedia, were illustrated during a conference held on 23 May 2006 at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome, with the participation of approximately 850 people, including students, teachers, librarians and school officials.
 

3.     - The work continued in the second year went on display on 3 May 2007, at the premises of the Temple of Hadrian in Rome.
This was also the occasion for the presentation of the complete publication of all products, in a boxed set with two books and two DVDs, produced with the contribution of the Rome Chamber of Commerce; the publications were then distributed to the schools, libraries and cultural institutions concerned.

Many schools promoted their own events for the local community in order to divulge the results of their work.