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The paper aims to provide an overview of the 61. National congress of the Italian library association "Librarians, the most beautiful job in the world. Also in Italy?" (online, November 25-26, 2021). Numerous speakers from the professional sphere and the university context participated in the congress, many of whom belong to AIB commissions and observers. The most significant issues that emerged from the speeches were reported, but we are aware of the impossibility of returning their rich content. In the conclusions, a reflection is proposed on the need to address the critical issues of the profession and libraries through different perspectives, overcoming self-referentiality and thus reaching a rich and profound knowledge of our sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper traces some professional choices that guided the management of Italian libraries over the last fifty years, focusing on the interpretation of their cultural role, also in relation to the progressive spreading of digital culture. Libraries, regardless of their functional typology, remain a constitutive part of Italy’s cultural heritage: it is therefore essential to find a synthesis between their nature of ‘cultural heritage’, their information function and their social function. In light of this common ground, it is therefore important to find a synthesis between libraries’ informative and social function. Today, libraries are in the most favorable position to weave relationships between people and institutions. Librarians can identify in this current context fertile ground to redefine their profession and place themselves at the service of an Italian civil and cultural revitalization. It is a question of giving libraries – intended as places of inclusiveness and gathering – a greater baggage of knowledge and culture to perform their widely recognized social role. By expanding their range of action, libraries remain social, cultural and information hubs capable of carrying out a renewed connective and participatory function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]