The University of Cantabria Library has digitised the in-house factory magazine La Fábrica of the Solvayfactory in Barreda (Torrelavega) and made it available as a searchable online archive. According to the university, the collection comprises 200 issues from 1955 to 1976, taken from the Fondo Solvay The project will be presented on Thursday, 24 September 2026, at the Casa de Cultura de Torrelavega in a public launch.
At the heart of the new portal, La Fábrica. Solvay 1955–1976, is full-text recognition of the digitised issues, allowing targeted searches for people’s names and topics within their contents. The Library of the University of Cantabria notes that, alongside company-related news, the issues contain numerous accounts of everyday life – from births and weddings to promotions and notices about club life and celebrations. The texts are supplemented by extensive photographic material. Together, the sources paint a social history of the industrial region along the river Besaya and the close ties between the factory and the town.
According to the Library, the project is designed as an open-ended public memory initiative. The portal offers a participation feature through which members of the public can submit contributions, such as additions to personal details, corrections or private photographs. Submissions are editorially reviewed before publication. The university sees this as a way to bring local remembrance and academic cataloguing together, and to encourage new research questions about the region’s labour and social history.
The digitised collections form part of the Fondo Solvay, which is held by the University of Cantabria. It documents a defining period in Torrelavega’s industrial development. In the decades after the Second World War, the Solvay factory in Barreda was one of the major employers in Cantabria; the issues reflect this role in reports on production, the workforce and life around the site.
According to the Library, the online archive La Fábrica. Solvay 1955–1976 is now freely accessible. With the presentation in Torrelavega, held in collaboration with the city council, the university aims to encourage its use in research, education, family and local history, and to invite the public to contribute.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).