Dr. Erwin Pröll

Governor of Lower Austria

Raising awareness of one’s own regional history and therewith creating a shared identity strengthens the relation between generations. This has been brilliantly been achieved through the topotheque, a Lower Austrian flagship project, and his founder Mag. Alexander Schatek. It is exemplary how the single, local topotheques are being run and managed on their own authority by volunteer “historians” of the respective communities. Over and above, the cooperation with the Lower Austrian rural renewal project, which delights me especially, serves as warrantor for a long-lasting anchoring of this initiative.

Mag. Wolfgang Sobotka

Governor deputy Lower Austria
Secretary for Finances, Residential Building and Work

The topotheque augments our archival landscape tremendously. The immediate participation of the population regarding the implementation of archival material makes the discovery of academic treasures possible and simple tools make this material freely accessible to the public. The topotheque proves to be an invaluable additional source for the Lower Austrian State Archives and already existing collaborations have already proven to be extremely fruitful. It is due to these kinds of initiatives that our local history and tradition won’t be forgotten.

Dr. Petra Bohuslav

Secretary for Economics, Tourism and Sports in Lower Austria

The well-known innovative force of Lower Austria is brilliantly manifests itself in the topotheque of Mr. Mag. Alexander Schatek. Founded in order to digitally archive, tag and localize his own historic material, this tool is used more and more by blue-yellow communities documenting their history for the generations to come and use this material also touristically. It is especially noteworthy that the topotheque manages to arc across generations since here the knowledge of older generations is being processed by means of modern tools. This way everyone can learn from each other. The fact that the topotheque ecame to be an ICARUS project, gives us rightly reason to be proud of our Lower Austrian ingenuity.