Search

The last fifteen years have been marked by a great drive to build new libraries throughout the Western world - and not only there. Most of the new buildings are public libraries, but many university and other types of libraries have also been built, not to mention a move to refurbish historical buildings in order to guarantee larger spaces to already existing libraries or to newly established libraries. This tendency contributes to reassuring librarians on the fact that, in spite of the "convergence to digital" of information content and the virtualization of services, libraries continue to be considered essential for the harmonious development of a community and there is no risk of their disappearance or marginalization. There is probably some truth in this conviction. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that the majority of architectural interventions about libraries form part of more extensive urban plans; they are often the result of a lucky concurrence of national policies and local initiatives and of general social and urban policies rather than more strictly cultural actions. Basically, the enthusiasm to create new libraries that has occurred in recent years was not triggered by a renewed interest in libraries. It can be explained as an attempt by cities - large ones in particular, but also medium and small ones - to give new life to public spaces, in order to gain back those citizens that are more and more attracted by private spaces and shopping citadels. Italy is part of this process even if it is characterized by some peculiarities that often lead Italian librarians to consider useless the analysis of international case studies for better understanding the future of Italian libraries. This is why this article aims at describing the Italian experience through the voice of its own protagonists. In autumn 2008, about thirty Italian librarians (and some scholars) - involved in various ways in creating new libraries or new buildings for the existing ones - were contacted to be interviewed on these issues and on the projects in which they had personally participated. Nineteen of those accepted to be interviewed and offered an interesting, even if rather biased, overview of the Italian viewpoint on this subject. The interviews were aimed, on the one hand, at finding out more about some aspects of the projects, and, on the other, at shedding light on new categories of users, relationships with the city and its way of life, role of the directors and relations with other libraries of different types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are assisting in Italy to a renewed interest towards questions connected to reference, which points out the need to face the challenges and new solutions proposed by the new digital context. At the beginning, telematic networks and the diffusion of Internet gave the impression of annulling the need of mediation in research. In a second time, facing the overload of distributed information through Internet, there has again been the need to effect a selection, reorganisation and evaluation of resources and information present in the Web, to exploit the role of libraries as gateways to access to resources for payment, to create new profiles of experts in the research of information. The future of reference should be considered, thought and defined as "digital". The focus of reference is moving from user's individual research to the librarian's assistance in research, to the user's cognitive learning of tools, strategies and research languages, as well as to the planning of training activities, introductory to any research activity. Digital technologies offer to libraries the possibility of an extensive interpretation of reference, supporting users during all the information and training path. We are assisting more and more to cooperation in the reference service. In Italy there is a new approach which sees reference turning from a situation of voluntarism and casualness of organisation models to a very high level of structuring. The experience of SegnaWeb, a vitual reference desk made in cooperation, is the first and the simplest form of digital reference in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author talks about Italian librarianship, intergenerational cross fertilization, and the journal's organizational changes.

Starting from the changes occurred in the larger environment libraries work in, the article deals with the new research needs libraries should cope with. In doing so, it intends to stimulate a careful consideration of the peculiar characteristics of the qualitative research methodology applied to the library user analysis, which takes into account the complex dynamics concerning the subjective and psychological aspects of motivations, needs and perceptions by patrons. By means of this analysis the article aims at explaining the reasons why, over the last years, the new paradigm of 'social librarianship' has emerged and how this change should be interpreted by libraries and librarians. In the final part of the article some considerations about future perspectives for libraries are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]