Histoire locale et « bibliothèque sportive » : comment des documents amateurs peuvent révéler des identités locales

To analyze history of the local communities the researcher can usually resort to traditional documents he consults in professionally institutes managed with substantial resources like public libraries, local archives, etc. Therefore, we can ask why refer to others collections held by “sporting library” (often amateur) can reveal sense of history and local culture? Indeed, sport associations may be regarded as minor resources. Based on the example of sport associations in Lyon (and more specifically alpine and hiking sections) we will see, unlike common stereotypes, that they offer library resources with easy access (many of which are free and open to the public), beyond the original approach, bring benefits in the study of local communities. The researcher can find diversity of historical material through books, yearbooks, topoguide, maps, manuscripts, pictures, etc. that traditional institutes don’t offer. Beyond traditional data (socio-demographic, etc.), these documents contain much information for the researcher who tackle differently the local history through the leisure culture. The purpose of this approach is not to oppose traditional resources and institutes but to show the originality and especially the complementarity. So this approach make it possible another way to study local history and explain how local identities was builded. In the first section of this paper we review how sporting libraries are born but also how their resources are build and what it offers. Next, we describe the features of collection and what information you can find. Finally, we describe, through the alpine club in Lyon the case of migrant communities.