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Starting from the observation of the reaffirmed centrality that Wikipedia and its sister projects assumed during the Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown, the article presents the Wikiproject Covid-19, in its dual articulation in Wikipedia and Wikidata. In particular, it analyzes the key role of librarians participating in the project, that they assume thanks to their knowledge in the LIS field and in the standardized description of resources through metadata. After a short international review, the paper reports the specific case of the University Library Center of the University of Salerno, where some librarians have actively contributed to the Wikidata Wikiproject Covid-19. Starting from the technical background acquired with participation in initiatives such as Wikicite or international campaigns such as "#1lib1ref" and from previous experiments, through the combined use of various tools and the creation of a rigorous workflow, the librarians have come to process and integrate thousands of data from Wikidata into quality biomedical databases in a relatively short time. The workflow focused mainly on three activities: the insertion of external unique identifiers for authors and scientific journals, the qualification of the items through the addition of bibliographic references and the subject cataloguing of the scientific articles relating to SARSCoV-2 and the related world pandemic. Lastly the essay highlights the limits and the critical issues of the semantic web, of the open collaborative projects and of the specific method used, with some considerations on the librarian's new centrality in the context of open data and on the need to participate in these projects in the in the area of Digital Humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the methodology applied by AIB, during the Covid-19 emergency, to provide information and recommendations in support of libraries and librarians. We focus in particular on the AIB recommended solutions to react to two different emergencies, one related to the public health, and the other to the employment in our sector – which weigh on the prospects of our sector. While the first one is of a contingent nature, but requires expensive solutions even in the medium term, the second one is structural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem addressed in the paper lies within the field of social robotics of media and social communication studies. The primary objective is to partially verify the occurrence of the phenomenon of the uncanny valley. It would occur in relation to anthropomorphic robots carrying out selected professions of high social respect. The second objective is to establish the level of a person’s sense of security depending on the type of services performed by the robots. The third purpose is to determine the correlation between various professional activities and anxiety of service recipients. The data was collected by means of a survey conducted on a target group of post-millennials by means of a questionnaire which assessed the images of anthropomorphic robots of varying degrees of similarity to humans who performed professions of high social prestige: university professor, physician, nurse, qualified worker, accountant, salesman. Some of the characteristics of the mentioned professions also feature a modern librarian, herein referred to as a librarian – an erudite of the digital era. The inference was carried out based on the distribution of marks and the Chi-squared independence test. The study indicates a premise that there exists the uncanny valley, and that there exists a relationship between the level of trust and confidence and the type of work the robot performs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of Genoan libraries belonging to the professional associations offers the opportunity to refocus the attention on private specialized libraries. The book collections of the professional associations are made up of often underestimated and/or unexploited bibliographic heritages that, in most cases in Genoa, have gone missing. The paper highlights the critical aspects of a nonprofessionalized management that is not aware of the value represented by documentary materials of specific orientation that have settled over time. At the same time, the potentialities that such book collections could play in local and national documentary networks are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the contents of Satellite meeting IFLA “Transforming LIS education for professionals in a global information world: digital inclusion, social inclusion and lifelong learning”, held in August 30-31, 2019, at Vatican Library and Palazzo Cardinal Cesi in Rome. The authors pay attention to specific topics about LIS education (derived by globalization, widespread of ITC and changes connected with it): the standardization of curricula to improve the occupational mobility; the ethical implications of digitalization of ‘culturally sensitive’ item to promote the communication, the collaboration and the integration between communities; the introduction of LIS educations in university in order to encourage new classes and increase the dialog between institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents Peter Johan Lor’s book, International and comparative librarianship: concepts and methods for global studies (Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Saur, 2019). As a result of a long research, the book shows the origins and the evolution of international and comparative librarianship as fields of study and research; it explains professional literature development on the subject; it deals with methodological aspects in terms of approaches, techniques and tools of comparison intended as a research strategy to analyze influences, divergences and consonances between different library contexts. Lor’s book is an opportunity for theoretical study but also a working tool, thanks also to the numerous examples that concern different geographic areas of the world and types of library as well as a variety of themes, functions and services. For its systematic approach, completeness and accuracy it is the most updated reference point for comparative studies, especially for library contexts, such as the Italian one, that are still too poor in reflections and real applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of shared authority files for cataloging manuscripts reflects an intrinsic complexity: a lack of homogeneity in the identification of all authorized access points. This article focuses on the analysis of authorized access points (personal names, corporate body names, family names and geographical names) present in Manus online (MOL), a database containing catalogue descriptions and digital images of manuscripts, private papers and archives held by Italian public, private and ecclesiastical libraries. In particular, personal name authority records are taken into consideration from two points of view: a quantitative (also with the help of graphs) as well as a qualitative, structural, and perspective approach. Workflow protocol, theoretical approach and practical aspects are summarized. From a strictly operational point of view, about name authority records, the XML schema elaborated by the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium is compared with the UNIMARC/Authorities, the universal format for authorities. This comparison allows us to rethink authority and reference records in terms of international standards, also in manuscripts cataloguing. In conclusion, a look at authority files and records of digital library and international digitization projects of manuscripts worldwide: E-codices, the virtual manuscript library of Switzerland, and Biblissima: Bibliotheca bibliothecarum novissima, an observatory for Medieval and Renaissance written cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay proposes a reflection on the topics covered during the conference "The privilege of the written word: management, preservation and improvement of personal cards and books" organized by the Department of Sciences of Cultural Heritage of the University of Salerno, with the collaboration of the Library Centre of the University of Bologna, the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna and the National Commission of Special Libraries, Archives and Author Libraries of the Italian Libraries Association. Risks are analyzed, such as those related to the dispersion and fragmentation of materials during the life of the producer, good practices, with the presentation of concrete projects, the approach to new digital technologies. The conference days, organized in sessions, were divided by themes: "Books, papers, maps: the personal workshops of writing and the arts"; "Personal funds in excavation, description and management activities"; "Personal funds between physical space and digital space: the paths of access and enhancement". Part of the event was dedicated to the presentation of the Guidelines on the treatment of personal funds. The publication of the proceedings will certainly encourage new reflections and a remodeling of the same guidelines, also in consideration of the documentary typologies to be treated that were subject of deepening and report during these study days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the potentialities and the limits ofthe citation analysis used as tool forthe evaluation of the scientific research in all the fields and in specific way in the field of the Human and Social sciences. Above all, the paper analyzes the proposal suggested by some authors – Adrianus J. M. Linmans, Howard D. White and Daniel Torres-Salinas together with Henk F. Moed – of using the survey of the number of the monographs in the holding of libraries as index of scientific quality of the works of the authors subjected to evaluation. Regarding themethodologies proposed by three authors – the Libcitation,the Library holding analysis and the Library catalogue analysis – there are put in evidence some critical elements that might make not reliable the reckonings relative to the diffusion of the monographs in the holdings of libraries, verifiable using on-line catalogues. In particular, are analyzed those tied to the composition of the library holdings and to the presence of copies donated and not acquired by the library, elements both underestimated by the authors examined. Atlast, itis putinto prominence how itis inopportune to accept as indicatorin the evaluation ofresearch inHSS the count ofthe presences ofmonographs in libraries, and how it is instead shareable the use suggested by Torres-Salinas and Moed of online catalografic data as sources for bibliometric analysis on the distribution of monographs and on the publishers' production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of modern bibliographic research tools, with a focus on discovery tools. In the first part it analyzes the evolution of the online catalog: being the main intermediary between the library and the outside world, the online catalog has been at the center of the professional debate since the late Seventies, when first generation OPACs were developed. The advent of the Internet brought to light several critical issues related with traditional catalogs¬¬, especially their inability to respond to the users' emerging needs: as a consequence, Web search engines started to become a major search and retrieval tool of documentary sources too. This led to the birth of two new instruments: next generation catalogs and discovery tools, new generation and web-based catalogs showing many similarities with to the most popular Web search engines. The second part of the paper shows the results of a qualitative analysis conducted on 116 users of the Library “Circolo Giuridico" of the University of Siena, in order to investigate theirapproach with OneSearch, the new library platform adopted by Tuscan universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper originates from the vertical organization of thought characterising the development of knowledge up to some decades ago, whose origin could be identified in its theological foundation and in the resulting propensity to reducing the manifold to units. This way of advancing had also consented to distinguish indefectibly good from evil, stigmatising the deviations from orthodoxy. From this presumption originates the Inquisition and the establishment of the Index of prohibited books - not rarely given sanctuary within the friendly walls of libraries. During the process of secularisation, science tends to replacing religion and to defending in its turn the truth by means of processes of validation and assessment promoted by the community of the researchers. The hungry dominion of technology upsets the balance and introduces a horizontal organisation of thought. In its progress, the latter is sustained by a huge power of calculus which exponentially increases both the amount of information available and the possibility for each individual to make use of it - on the contrary, to have much more available of it than the individual can perceive. The theatre where this revolution takes place is the Web: and the main emerging player is artificial intelligence (AI), which is not just involved into the cognitive, but also in the popularization process. This is the precisely the ideal context for germination and prosperity of fake news which nourish books and mass-media systems generated by a network which is increasingly sophisticated and difficult to unveil, where not even the classic semiotics can help us interpret a text. In this Babel, where everyone is free to believe everything and its opposite, a pensée unique may win, one tending to a planetary organisation of resources and intelligences. It takes on the aspect of a repressive tolerance, of a reversed inquisition which, because it tolerates and uniforms everything, in effect forces out every element of difference. In this perspective, no possible institutional action can help us out: an endeavour at personal responsibility and the hunt for some principles are the tools that we can use. In this perspective, Grotius and the Natural Law, losers from an historical perspective, can still show us the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that user research constitutes a consolidated area of study with defined limits, it can entail terminological difficulties for researchers who are not familiar with it. This type of research can be traced, at least, under four different headings: user studies or information needs and uses studies; information behaviour or information-seeking behaviour; information practices and information experience. This paper presents a basic analysis of the founding theoretical and methodological features which help understand what is behind these headlines, why they came to be used and what kind of research can be found under these four headings. The aim is to facilitate the exhaustive retrieval of specialized bibliography, as well as critical reading, taking into account these theoretical and methodological considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents in detail and analyses the book Revistas cientifícas: situación actual y retos de futuro, Ernest Abadal (ed). Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2017. Data and consideration on scientific publishing, its birth, open access, the peer review process, traditional and alternative metrics are presented, in an attempt to outline future trends of academic journals that represent the connection between scholars, readers and the rest of society, an indispensable condition for scholarly communication and the progress of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at focusing on some interpretative issues cropping up whenever data on reading are analysed. In particular, examples are given of the various conclusions that can be drawn when a pointby- point, disaggregate analysis of statistical data is carried our, or, alternatively, when their examination is repeated after some time, or when long-term tendencies are gleaned from the analysis of the historical series. Likewise, we could observe an issue in detail, or try and widen our view to focus on the specific situation as a whole in order to put it in context, while trying to ascertain relationships, to trace the casual connections or the influential aspects. The methodologies adopted by ISTAT (The Italian National Institute for Statistics) in the past half century must be put in perspective, in order to understand the motives behind them and the rationale of both questions and answers. Moreover, this way it is possible to see the connections between reading habits and the evolution of the Italian society, thus achieving an overall view of the cultural involvement in our country. We are facing innovatios that radically modify the phenomena we would like to analyse, whose study requires new investigation tools. The old quantitative methods are by now inadequate, while we still little and poorly use qualitative methods and the tools that the web makes available to us, because we have not yet gained enough sound experience to put them into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper completes the study on systems for managing electronic resources and examines the library services platforms (LSP), next-generation systems that allow to manage within a single platform the entire life cycle of all resources (print, electronic or digital), regardless of granularity and of acquisition mode. In this way the library services platform integrates various functions first guaranteed by the use of separate instruments, in particular ILS, ERMS and link resolver,resulting in numerous and significant advantages in terms of efficiency. The paper describes functionalities and technical features of these new products and offers an overview of the main library services platforms, proprietary and open source, available on the market. The paper concludes with the results' presentation of a survey about the use of library services platforms at italian academic libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the road that – at the beginning of the 2000s – led to the implementation of ERMS, management systems specifically designed for electronic resources. An ERMS is a software that enables libraries to control and manage every step of the complex e-resources life cycle, in order to rationalize the entire management process. The paper analyzes ERMS features, technical characteristics, advantages and weaknesses, as well as the main products – both proprietary and open source – available on the market. This study will be completed by a second paper focusing on library services platforms (LSP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a literary review of several pending issues that show the necessity of an innovation in the field of information management and search systems – still, this innovation must be deep, balanced and scientifically aware of LIS principles. In particular, it examines the role of web-scale discovery services and discovery tools, and their possible inclusion among the library mediation tools. First, the article reviews a number of arguments supporting the development of OPAC interfaces according to the principles of Web 2.0 and semantic Web: extreme user-friendliness and usability, interactive and collaborative organization, interoperability, data granularity. Then, it investigates the prospect of discovery tools as the new ‘single' systems to search for all the resources mediated by a library. However, such an innovation should aim not only to the transformation of the query interfaces of databases, but also to the development of a new way of creating and organizing data according to FRBR, RDF, linked data. These arguments are then compared with other approaches more focused on LIS principles. In any case, it is essential to maintain the resources' original coherence, and the authority of the data origin. Finally, the paper remarks the limits of ‘information discovery': at present, new systems do not have the same precision of databases, OPACs and other trustworthy tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the two national standards on the professional profiles oflibrarian and archivist published in July 2014 by UNI (Ente italiano di normazione) under the responsibility of the UNI – Documentation and information technical committee. - Paola Manoni presents the structure and schedule oftheUNI –Documentation and information technical committee, along with its main initiatives. - Giovanna Merola outlines how – since 2000 – UNI has carried out a series of standards on non-regulated professions. UNI's purpose is to define – on the basis of the European directives and of the European qualification framework – the general structure of the standards in order to ensure transparency and consistency. The technical committee UNI – Documentation and information, with its Working Group 7 – Evaluation of professions related to the management of data and documents, has so far produced two standards on the professional profiles of librarian and archivist. - Flavia Cancedda describes the UNI 11535:2014 standard, defining the activity of librarian in compliance with the provisions ofthe law 4/2013 on not organized professions. Both the law and theUNI standard give a new and substantial chance to librarians, providing them with the opportunity to adequately enhance their know-how and to gatherthe different professional associations under a unique professional standard, now legally recognized. The paper outlines the Italian and European rules, as well as the context in which the UNI standard was developed, and illustrates its benefits and future applications in the labor market. Finally, a few significant steps of the standard are analyzed more in detail. - Giovanni Michetti shows how the EQF model has been applied to develop the UNI 11536:2014 standard, aimed at identifying the essential competences, skills and knowledge of the archivist's profession. He provides an overview of the standard UNI 11536:2014, that may serve different needs – from updating and re-designing professional training and curricula, to raising awareness about the archivist's role in the information and documentation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws a balance - starting from the detailed analysis of the book edited by Roberto Raieli, Advances in information and progress in knowledge: granularity, interoperability and data integration - of the state of the art and of the practical experience of cultural institutions of different nature and provenance around the use of linked open data (LOD) and of the semantic web, and tries to identify the lines of future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fake news is a hot topic, not only in the professional debate. Among the roles libraries are ready to play there is educating to media literacy, meaning teaching people to think critically when they seek information in the digital space. If it is true that critical thinking is a cross-disciplinary skill, the school - the institution in charge of shaping basic skills - seems to be the ideal place to teach this kind of literacy, along with the other indispensable literacies leading to a self-conscious and active citizenship. The present paper, after a short definition of the key concepts, relates about an experience led during the first year of secondary school, inspired by Carol C. Kuhlthau's guided inquiry model and by the con-cept of 'third space', adapted to the specific situation. The synergy with the teachers led to many obser-vations and reflections on what it is necessary to do to to train students to think critically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Lankes in his paper presented to the International seminar "Biblioteche per apprendere" (held on October 23, 2017, at the Ministry of Education, University and Research in Rome) states that the core of librarianship is the creation of knowledge and, therefore, the libraries should help a community to learn. More in detail, speaking about school libraries, the author depicts the teacher-librarian, an educator trained in pedagogy with a curriculum in information problem solving, being able to engage students around information literacy and problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the role of libraries and librarians in the fight against fake news, mainly focusing on four issues: 1) the relationship between content selection and content evaluation, which is relevant even in dealing with free on-line content and its discovery tools; 2) the relationship between the librarian's neutrality and her/his social responsibility in the wake of the growth and the danger of fake news; 3) the two different paradigms represented by 'neutral' and 'active' or 'expert' librarian; 4) the relevance for this discussion of the distinction between different kinds of fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today libraries face, among others, two interlinked challenges: on the one hand the abundance of information available especially on the Internet and, on the other, the widespread habit to consider all this information as plausible. The contemporary world (the so called post-truth society) considers truth as something that simply doesn't exist. This assumption contrasts with the idea of a library as an influential and legitimate structure of mediation between documents and readers. This paper aims to demonstrate that, particularly in a society where many points of view coexist, the search for truth has, at the same time, an epistemological, ethical, political and professional foundation. Truth is not to be considered an absolute certainty but, more intuitively, as 'things are as they really are': this is a public discussion about research, as a method and a deontological and ethic responsibility. Three complementary issues are discussed: the need to separate facts from opinions, i.e. by checking and censoring what is demonstrably false; with regard to opinions, the importance to clarify that secularism does not mean indifference to values; finally, with regard to library collections, the need to bridge the gap between abstract and normative decisions and the needs of users as they really are and not as they are imagined. The author emphasises the dramatic urgency of public libraries' mission and the professional role of librarians themselves, who are to be considered custodians of critical knowledge and freedom of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a first reflection in Italy on the practices of open peer review (OPR), an umbrella term used to refer to several open and innovative ways to exercise the peer review in the scholarly communication web domain. OPR helps to overcome the drawbacks of anonymous traditional peer review. It improves the review process by making it more open and transparent and enhances the dialogue between scientists within the same discipline and between different disciplines. The paper also discusses the topic of the qualitative relevance of OPR. In conclusion, the author claims that OPR is still far from replacing traditional peer review models but it can become a valid support to create a better qualitative research evaluation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do young children read? In which ways and postures? What moments do they dedicate to reading? What preferences do they have? At the time of a widespread diffusion of digital books, it is be useful to reason about the meaning of reading, which for children is not only a cultural mean but it is also a type of relationship, growth and pleasure. Extensive surveys and quantitative methods don't always grasp all the aspects of this social and emotional experience. At the same time, the peculiarities of the preschool age together with the complexity of this matter require less invasive data collection methods and various forms of surveys. This article will review some problematic examples of surveys concerning children's reading (Istat, Censis) and a number of past survey methodologies that can provide useful tools to analyze the current situation (Chamboredon-Fabiani). Finally the paper offers a methodological proposal which is intended to present the main elements behind the phenomenon of reading in preschool age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay follows a different and parallel analysis that became evident during a previous research on library science criteria and methods for collection development, conducted in order to ascertain the reliability of online catalogues as information sources with reference to authors and works for the scientific monograph assessment. Starting from a reconstruction of the Italian librarianship debate of the second half of the twentieth century around issues of library collection development, developed through the comparison with international literature, the paper examines the different actors' roles and the changed conditions of bibliographic collections during transition from cultural to librarianship management of Italian libraries' heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has been conceived within the PhD in Library and Information Science at La Sapienza University of Rome, and is focused on the vitality and effectiveness of Italian LIS studies. The paper describes the search in Web of science, Scopus and Google Scholar for any paper written by Italian LIS researchers and university professors, illustrating the research method, the difference of use – and limitations – of the three databases and the difficulties experienced with Google Scholar, and reporting WoS and Scopus numerical results as well. This first research results made it clear that, in order to investigate the presence and impact of Italian LIS studies, a correct use and organization of quantitative data is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the transmigration on OJS platform of the «Bollettino AIB» volumes already hosted on the old AIB website, focusing on specific technical problems as well as on the wider theoretical issueof the difference between paper and digital reviews. The work – accomplished by a team of volunteer librarians – allowed the editorial team to implement the old review volumes with additional features. Besides, it offered the chance to consider how editorial decisions were made also depending on the review's format – the paper edition, the old digital edition hosted on AIB website, and the new digital edition published using OJS software. One of the most notable considerations is that not only the review content is heavily influenced by its media (analog VS digital), but that different digital architectures bring to different editorial choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On November 6, 2008 the J. Michael Goodson Law Library at the Duke University School of Law held a debate about the 21st century law library, i.e. about the development of law libraries in a transformed technological and informational environment. This is an extremely hot topic for Italian law libraries too, not so different from their American counterparts as for collections and services. The paper points out the salient features and criticalities of 21st century Italian law libraries: the ever increasing price of electronic resources, the growing disaffection towards paper, the necessity of a further development of Open access, the role of librarians in the process of digitalization and preservation of library documents, the different use of library spaces in a technological environment, the strategic role of information literacy, the cooperation between librarians and professors. Finally, it describes The Law Student Research Competencies and Information Lteracy Pinciples developed by the AALL (American association of law libraries) in order to improve the library services and promote the quality of research in the Law field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with a few general issues concerning librarians' education and professional refresher training, and was inspired by a meditation on the deep changes that are taking place in the world of academic and research libraries. The subject has recently been addressed in a meeting held in Milan on November 22th-23th 2012 - “Stati generali dei professionisti del patrimonio culturale" (States-General of cultural workers) - promoted by MAB Italia. Also, it has become an hot topic after the recent approval of law no. 4 of January 14th 2013, Disposizioni in materia di professioni non organizzate (Rules on professions not governed by a professional order) which introduces new legal profiles for professionals not belonging to any professional order- librarians included. The paper makes a clear distinction between professional refresher training and higher education, claiming that technological and digital skills are essential for the profession, but have to be grounded on a broader and more structured cultural background that may help librarians to deal with the constant changes that all kinds of libraries are facing over and over today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the topics dealt with in Giovanni Solimine's scientific works, starting from the volume Percorsi e luoghi della conoscenza. Dialogando con Giovanni Solimine su biblioteche, lettura e società, edited by Giovanni Di Domenico, Giovanni Paoloni and Alberto Petrucciani (Bibliografica, 2016). The book's contents are analyzed under two different perspectives, both of them aimed at delving into the role of Library science today. Nowadays this discipline not only has the task of designing and identifying the best tools for managing different types of libraries, but also needs to make libraries acknowledged by the whole society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the issue of using Wikimedia platforms as tools for the development of digital information literacy in the library, at school and at university, in light of the upgrades of the last three years. The analysis starts from the space reserved for Wikipedia in the Information literacy manifesto drafted by AIB (Italian Libraries Association) and in the PNSD (National plan for digital school), it continues with a series of references to the two white books promoted by The Wikipedia Library (Wikimedia Foundation) and IFLA and presented on the occasion of the "World Library and Information Conference 2016", it ends with the report of some good practices conducted in Italian libraries in an educational context. Ultimately, it emerges the opportunity to design actions capable of developing digital citizenship practices in an increasingly complex information ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, starting from not necessarily oppositive categories such as 'boldness' and 'graduality' and with references to twentieth-century poets (Thomas S. Eliot), historians (Fernand Braudel), bibliographers (Donald McKenzie), sociologists (Niklas Luhmann) and librarians (Shiyali R. Ranganathan), suggests reflections on the intersection of different time structures and dimensions in the life of libraries and cultural institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports the “AIB CILW 2016 Conference" entitled “Revamping information resources: granularity, interoperability and data integration", organized by the AIB study group on Cataloguing, indexing, linked open data and semantic web, held on October 21, 2016, at the National Central Library, Rome. Choral reflection on the theoretical and practical aspects of the transformation of the management of information resources produced by the adoption of the semantic Web and linked open data, has enabled the audience to appreciate some good practices put in place by the cultural professionals and to focus on some particularly promising prospects, such as the development of new data visualization models and the integration of data produced by GLAM specialists with those produced by the Wikimedia community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the Design thinking for libraries: a toolkit for patron-centered design, a document released in early 2015 and originated from experiences of librarians working side by side in their contexts under the Global libraries program funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The private design company IDEO partnered with the Chicago Public Library in the U.S. and Aarhus Public Libraries in Denmark heading to the creation of a practical guide for librarians and managers including readings, resources, and activities that will help to understand design thinking methods and rethink the library to the users' changing needs. The Design thinking for libraries toolkit originates from the participatory librarianship movement, giving more and more attention to the library community and its active role in designing the library of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents results of a research about user-catalogue interactions developed at the library of the Department ofmusicology and cultural heritage (Cremona) of PaviaUniversity (Italy). The research involved a simple random sampling of 30 users and was based on a multi-method approach, including screen captures, pre- and post-search surveys. Results show that users of the library of the Department of musicology and cultural heritage prefer searches by a ‘Google like' interface, that they search only known items, and that most used search data are author surname (21,9%), or author name and surname (21,9%), or author surname and a word from title (15,6%). Further users put in less data than they know and quite often (36%) data collected from user by the surveys are different from data collected by the analysis of video recordings. This firstresearch suggests to apply thismulti-method approach to new case studies and to extend, if possible, researches to new search interfaces (in particular with regard to FRBR-zed OPACs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the relationship between Wikipedia and libraries, briefly reviewing the history of Wikipedia and GLAM – galleries, libraries, archives, and museums – projects, and evaluating the possible future development of library-related projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early years of the 20th century a tragic event broke in the history of Italian libraries: the violent and voluntary death of Giulio Puliti, librarian and director of the University Library of Catania, author of several essays. The main reason of Puliti's death was a violent argument with Luigi Sturzo, a fellow member of the Commission for the reconstruction of the municipal library of Caltagirone, that was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1901. The paper recalls the main steps of the reconstruction of the library of Caltagirone between 1901 and 1904, analyzing the role of Puliti and Sturzo within the Commission and displaying several unpublished documents related to the events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convergence between archives, libraries and museums has been a critical issue in the recent scientific and professional debate, and it lead to a reconfiguration of the various disciplines related to LAM. The interdisciplinary approach seemed the most appropriate to give new meaning to the relationship between archives, libraries and museums, and the best suited to find a convergence path. The essay analyzes the different kinds of disciplinarity regardless of their domain of application, showing how multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity represent three subsequent levels of cooperation and coordination. Exploring the nature of the relationships between the disciplines of archives, libraries and museums, the paper tries to provide an answer to two key research questions: where are these relationships positioned on the range between multi- and trans-disciplinarity? what are their chances of enhancement towards higher forms of cooperation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay examines the existing literature on the topic of writers' archives and libraries, dwelling upon theoretical issues as well as on management models and practical matters. What do we mean by writers' libraries? What are the main bibliographic and archival issues regarding writers' archives and libraries? What's the relationship between books and documents, libraries and archives, and how can librarians, archivists and scholars work together? Why is it still important to acquire private libraries and archives? How can the place of destination (locus) affect the writers' libraries fortune? The paper answers to all these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years Italian libraries and public/private cultural institutions have organized several workshops on manuscripts and ancient books, specifically addressed to children and teenagers. The paper analyzes these educational activities paying particular attention at the different locations where the workshops took place and at the different skills of the professionals involved in each project. The paper then focuses on the opportunity to shape specific educational projects taking into consideration the specific target of these activities as well as their significance, as for the younger public this could be the first -- and perhaps unique -- chance to approach the libraries' historical collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper revolves around the key issues of ‘multiplicity'and ‘exchange'. Multiple are the training courses to become a librarian, and multiple are the disciplines involved, but the traditional skills of cataloguing, classifying and organizing resources are improved by historical and philological approaches: cataloging can thus become an opportunity for study and discovery. Multiple are the library resources, as well as the international library and cultural institutions networks connecting people who deal with cultural heritage. Several huge metadata sharing projects (HPB, CERLThesaurus, Europeana)meet different librarians'information needs, and some of them are dedicated to specific resources, such as incunabula (ISTC, GW, TextInc). Finally,the recent interest of libraries in Wikipedia (GLAM projects, #1Lib1Ref) proves that libraries are more and more interested in collaborating in non-traditional frameworks too. Thanks to the case study of the BEIC digital library,the authors show how participation in networks fosters perspective thinking: when the daily routine involves discussion and cooperation, it's easier to get acknowledgment and visibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the main topics discussed during the symposium “Data in the Net: archives and libraries in the Semantic Web" held on December 4, 2015 at the Central Library “Caianiello" of the University of Salerno. The speakers – Marina Mecheri, Isidoro D'Auria, Patrizia De Martino, Andrea Marchitelli, Roberto Raieli, Tiziana Possemato, Antonella Trombone and Valeria Lo Castro – provided several insights on the evolution of cataloging standards and on the latest technologies adopted by librarians in order to keep methods and practices up-to-date with the web developments. Beyond the variety of techniques and solutions, there's a clear need to disseminate knowledge and to enhance the librarianship's social dimension, that can be paraphrased in the expression ‘linked open libraries'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper – starting from the book Linked data for libraries, archives and museums (Mauro Guerrini and Tiziana Possemato, 2015) – discusses how cultural institutions, such as libraries, archives and museums, could benefit from the semantic Web, and how they could contribute to the Web community. The book presents linked data basic principles, suggesting standards, technologies and languages for their creation and management. Describing their life cycle, as well as the main national and international projects, it enables the reader to understand what linked data are, and to figure out some critical issues related to their production, publication and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wikidata is the latest project run by Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization sustaining Wikipedia and several related projects. The aim of Wikidata is to collect and structure the key data of every article and page of the 800+ Wikimedia projects, so that they can be read, translated, edited and re-used by anyone (including machines) in every official language of Wikimedia projects. The paper examines Wikidata's technical and theoretical features; its main objectives; the essential notion and meaning of ‘item' and ‘property'; the state of the art three years after its launch – with regard to Wikimedia projects as well as to third parties; and finally it provides an overview of the main tools created so far for the reuse of Wikidata's data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the main available tools for the application of web metrics and altmetrics. After a brief description of the transformations occurred in scientific communication due to the Web, the article focuses on the meaning of 'impact' and 'social visibility' with regard to research assessment. The author provides a detailed overview of the most popular tools for web metrics, as well as sources and software for altmetrics. The fast-growing field of altmetrics is still unstable, thus not allowing their use for institutional purposes. However, their application in addition to traditional metrics is desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper gives an account of the conference “Archaeological and book heritage during World War One: instruments for an Italian public memory one century after" (University of Urbino, May 6th, 2015). The conference was an opportunity for scholars in different fields to meet and discuss about the same topic, trying to delineate a portrait as accurate as possible of World War One, and of the deep wound that was inflicted to the whole country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book which is discussed collects 180 writings by Luigi Crocetti, whose relevance today consists not so much in the solution proposed by the author, as in his method and argumentation. The collected papers can help today's reader in clearing up some critical issues, in a juncture – as the one we're living in – of great uncertainty in the perception of library's role and social function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the attention given in national and international professional literature to the measurement of the value and impact of public and academic libraries, there's a growing need for evaluating special libraries too (e.g. research or historical libraries). The lack of a systematic approach in this field is due to the difficulty in measuring the profusion of libraries' informative, cultural and creative activities and events, as well as the correspondent library services, and the benefits experienced by those who use the library (educational development, career opportunities, social relations, cultural interests, etc.). The aim of this paper is to stress the strategic value of this type of libraries, introducing a new perspective in the Italian evaluating framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the annual conference “STI-Science and technology indicators 2014", one of the main opportunities for specialists of science and technology metrics to meet each other – organized by the prestigious Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at the University of Leiden – a group of researchers produced a document that clearly recognizes the unanticipated consequences resulting from the pervasive misapplication of indicators to the evaluation of scientific performance. The article Bibliometrics: Leiden Manifesto for research metrics, published on April, 2015 on «Nature», establishes the 10 fundamental principles for anyone using quantitative metrics for evaluation purposes. Stressing the differences between the previous San Francisco Declaration of research assessment-DORA and the Manifesto, the paper emphasizes the strengths of the latter, that can be rightly considered a milestone on the road to evaluation research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]