Resum

This paper describes the creation of Florida Universitaria CRAI’s Catálogo de la mujer. Florida is an educational cooperative set up in the region of Valencia in the 1970s, a time when many projects were launched in an attempt to change and modernize approaches to teaching. Since its inception, the values that have underpinned its work have been a management style based on democratic practices, secularism, the promotion of the Valencian language and coeducation, and the application of the Mondragón business model. These values have also shaped the creation of the bibliographical archives belonging to the CRAI-Bibilioteca and the rest of the cooperative’s libraries. Since the first professional training programmes in 1977-1978, the cooperative has adapted the courses on offer to the needs of its public (and also in line with its budget). Florida Universitària came into being in the early 1990s, as an associated centre attached to the Valencia’s two main universities (the University of Valencia and the Polytechnic University). Finally, the language centre was founded in 1994. La Florida is based in Catarroja, a town in the Horta Sud of Valencia, where secondary school studies, language teaching and university courses are taught at three different sites. These centres were created at different stages of the cooperative’s history, building on the original secondary school and expanding to cover the teaching needs of a group of villages located some way away from the city, and responding to the rising demands of the area’s industrial sector.