The UPF Library has expanded its collection through an agreement with the Escarré International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations (CIEMEN) for the long-term loan of a collection of works on topics related to stateless peoples and nations and collective and linguistic rights. The collection is of great value for teaching, study and research purposes.

The loan was arranged through the signing of an agreement between CIEMEN and Pompeu Fabra University on the morning of 25 April at the Rector’s Office. The agreement, for an initial period of twenty years (renewable), was signed by David Minoves, president of CIEMEN, and Jaume Casals, rector of UPF, on behalf of their respective institutions.

The event was attended by Enric Ucelay Da-Cal, a lecturer in the Department of Humanities and coordinator of the States, Nations and Sovereignties Research Group (GRENS), who was the driving force behind the loan; Mercè Cabo, deputy general manager of the Services, Technology and Information Resources Area; Montserrat Espinós, director of the Library; Xavier Brunet, head of the Library’s Logistics Unit; and Xavier Ibáñez, head of its Social Sciences and Humanities Unit.

At the event, Casals noted that ‘the University’s library is a source of permanent satisfaction. In addition to its aesthetic beauty, it facilitates and ensures the agile processing of all kinds of book donations, and it has become a leading centre for scholars and researchers from around the world.’

According to Minoves, for CIEMEN, the loan will ‘allow us to build an academic relationship from our centre, raise awareness of the issues we work with and open them up to research. We had a wealth of resources on cultural and linguistic identity tucked away, and we needed to make those texts accessible to everyone.’

A collection of unpublished works available to the university community

The collection, which was started when CIEMEN was founded and has continued to grow in the intervening years, consists of around 5,000 books and pamphlets and 900 collections of serial publications, primarily focused on Europe, but also on Latin America and Africa.

The collection, which is already physically at the Library, is quite valuable as many of the works are unpublished. Measured in metres of shelving, it consists of 88 metres of journals and 84 metres of books and pamphlets. In addition to the works already received, CIEMEN will provide the documentation it receives and produces each year in order to enrich and update the collection.

The next step is to sort, process and catalogue the works. This process and the prioritization of the works will be carried out by the Library staff with the assistance of Ucelay Da-Cal and his fellow lecturer Josep Pich, both of whom belong to the GRENS research group. Upon completion of this process, the collection, which will be listed as the ‘CIEMEN Loan’, will be available for use by the entire university community, scholars and researchers, especially GRENS members.

In a second stage, the two parties will perform a technical study and economic assessment with a view to digitalizing and publicly disseminating the most important parts of the collection, where possible, via digital repositories and other open-access online platforms.

International connections to promote research in the field of stateless nations

In his remarks, Ucelay Da-Cal underscored, ‘This is a win-win agreement, and it was made possible through the good understanding between and efficiency of both parties. It opens a new era of academic partnership for CIEMEN and will enable UPF to carry out its academic activity based on reflections on its own culture and language, its future environment.’

The professor of contemporary history at UPF also noted that the collection would enable UPF to begin to forge a link with an international research network in the field of nationalism and national movements.

He was referring to the National Movements & Intermediary Structures in Europe or NISE network, coordinated by the Antwerp-based ADVN centre in Flanders (Belgium), devoted to the study of nationalisms and social movements. The research centre, which received a substantial grant from the Flemish government, has an extensive and consolidated collection on these issues, which could complement UPF’s. The possibility of academic cooperation exchanges between the two institutions has already been raised.

In this regard, according to Casals, ‘The University is seeking a profile able to approach the issue of nationalism as an in-depth subject of study, from the perspective of a world made up of nations and culture systems, as a new working axiom.’ ‘We must find formulas to enable us to carry out a series of regular activities in this line’, the rector added.

CIEMEN is a Catalan civil society organization, founded in exile in 1974, that works to publicize and promote the Catalan national reality throughout the world, disseminate knowledge on stateless peoples and nations, and defend their collective rights.