Syndicate: Memorial Library of Emigrants

[Vesna Manojlovic <becha@classroom.opennet.org>]

dear faces, dear syndicalists!

i have few things to announce:

* on the 4th january i'm moving to amsterdam - i got a new job in
RIPE NCC.  i will be working in the communication department, to become
soon trainer coordinator.
i will keep this e-mail address for some more time, but my new private
e-mail will be: becha@xs4all.nl

new address and the phone number i still don't know, but as soon as i
get them i will let you know. so,  if someone has any hint/help/advice
for (extremely difficult) finding an apartment to rent in amsterdam,
please, let me know! details on the web:
http://www.classroom.opennet.org/~becha/sweet.home.html

* to celebrate this, i am making a party: thursday, 24th december,
belgrade, club 'andergraund'
info on the web: http://www.classroom.opennet.org/~becha/@ypka/

* i was invited to the conference to be held in vienna 29-30. january:
'traslocation_new media/art'.
abstract of my lecture follows (...).  url: http://www.translocation.at

happy holidays!
from
happy BECHA

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                       Memorial Library of Emigrants --
Old and New Media as Communication Tools for Translocated


I was always a book-worm.  From books I sucked up knowledge, ideas and
experiences that I could not gain in my real life.
Later, I replaced books with the Internet.

I am also a recent emigrant from rump Yugoslavia.  In last 9 years there

were 400.000 of us.  Like me, most were educated people.  Apart from the

country, one other thing many of us abandoned were our books.

Even before I left the country, I left my library at my parents' home. I

had neither the space to keep it nor the resources to move it. So I took

only the favorites. When I left the country I even had to leave behind
some of these.

The importance of possessing books for me is :  to have them available
for
re-reading and refreshing ideas that I picked up from them; being able
to
lend them to people that I care about; creating an image of myself out
of
the list of my favorite books. But, for all these functions, I don't
really have to keep my books myself -- they can be stored in a public
accessible space - A Library. In this way I can take them whenever I
want, but other people can also borrow them.

Thus, the idea of a Memorial Library of Emigrants - a physical home for
abandoned books and a virtual shared home for the spirit of the books'
owners/donors.

All the translocated people are invited to leave their books - or at
least
one - in the Library. Each book will bare the donor's name, as well as
her/his present location and contact details. This and other information

will be used to form a database: who was borrowing the book and when,
readers opinions, a full list of the donor's other books...

The Library server will be accessible through the Internet.  In this way

all the donors will be able to trace what is happening to their books:
who is reading them, and how frequently, what are the comments...  They
will be able to get in touch with the readers, with each other, and to
search for their old friends.

All the members will be able to have their own permanent e-mail address,

accessible through the web, and a place on the web-server for their
home-page.

Since Ex-Yugoslavs are the first European emigrants to be created in the

modern IT age, Internet became a primary means of communication between
the displaced in their new location and those left behind in the home
country, and also those spread out around the globe.

Memorial Library of Emigrants will be one more virtual meeting place for

Post-Yugoslav emigrants -- a community based around their connection
with
books.
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