Lublin Sports History Documentation Center, or a Way to Cultivate the History of Local Sports

Abstract

The raising interest in local history and the almost universal belief that its important component is the history of sports, become a reason to reflect on the “infrastructure” of research conducted in this area. This issue includes, e.g., the creation of specialized archives and libraries. Models as to methods of reducing the discomfort of research can be provided, e.g., by the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Warsaw, a sort of central institution dealing with the history of sports. On a small scale and at no cost, while collecting its own experience, local sports are also being nurtured by the Lublin Sports History Documentation Center. This is a unique research project successfully conducted at the Institute of History of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin) since 2013. The Center is at once a publishing house, a virtual archive, a library and, finally, a substitute for a sports periodical. Thanks to its openness to the outside world, the Center unifies and integrates the circles of professional and non-professional researchers of the history of local sports.