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The paper reflects on La biblioteca pubblica e la sua reputazione, Maria Stella Rasetti's last book, published by Editrice bibliografica. The reflection starts from the reputation as object of study of different disciplines (such as communication, marketing, economics, sociology) and analyzes the importance of library reputation, closely associated with identity and image. Rasetti identifies four classes to place Italian public libraries and proposes a model to measure library reputation, adapted from business models, which uses personalized questionnaires for each class. The paper analyzes model validity and contextualizes it in the field of user satisfaction, performance and libraries impact. The hope is that measuring reputation can help public libraries to build a new narrative that overcomes public administration stereotypes of which they are victims, and to equip citizens with useful skills for work, everyday and social life, making them active and conscious protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper illustrates the results of a survey conducted in the period January-February 2023 involving the users of the Turin Public Libraries, an urban system currently affected by a significant strategic rethinking process. Through the analysis of the answers to questionnaire provided by 3,926 people, it was possible to bring to light the complexity and the multidimensionality of the act of reading and to gather interesting information on three central issues: the process that leads readers to choose the book; the libraries' role in fostering and enriching the reading experience; the complementarity between book and other form of access to narrative world, both outside and within libraries. These cognitive elements can help both to improve the collection development policies and to favor the meeting between readers and collections, also through their integrated and transmedial organization within an enriched physical and virtual bibliographic space, which stimulates and enhances the reading experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a new methodological approach to collection evaluation in public libraries, with the aim to read bibliographic and usage data in a less self-referential way and to improve collection development and management. Behind this approach there are two integrated types of analysis. The first one is a quantitative and qualitative benchmarking between different library collections: the attention focuses on the size of collections, the variety, the publishers, the subjects, the circulation data. The second type of analysis concerns the benchmarking between library collections and editorial production. Also in this case, the comparison covers the quantitative aspects (number of books selected by libraries and number of books published), the qualitative aspects (subjects, types of documents, Conspectus levels) and the usage data (loans and sales). The paper illustrates the results of a first and experimental application of this methodological approach for the analysis of collection portions of 26 public libraries (belonged to two Italian library systems), that are compared with the editorial production of the subject area Social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first part the paper illustrates the results of an analysis of the Italian editorial production on LGBTQ+ issues, limited to non-fiction for adults published between 2016 and the first half of 2021. Subsequently, the analysis focuses on the representativeness of these publications within the collections of the library systems located in ten large Italian cities. A comparative study is carried out on various aspects: years of publication, publishers, DDC classes, Conspectus levels, usage data. Moreover, through interviews with librarians a qualitative survey is also conducted, to bring to light additional elements, including the reasons and criteria for the acquisition or the non-acquisition of LGBTQ+ titles. In conclusion, after a comparison with similar studies conducted in other geographical contexts, the author tries to understand whether cognitive biases are among the factors influencing the development of LGBTQ+ collections. Bringing out any bias is fundamental to make librarians more aware and to emphasize the professional ethics and the principles of plurality on which the concept of public library is based. This type of study also allows to obtain detailed information elements to be taken into account in projects aimed at implementing recommendation systems that exploit the potential of Artificial Intelligence and, in particular, of machine learning: it should not be forgotten, in fact, that algorithmic biases reflect real-world biases. temi e analisi [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes as its focal point falsehood as an issue in the post-factual truth society. After reaffirming that the concept of truth represents a fundamental element for the very survival of democracy, and having specified its meaning (too often misrepresented), the paper discusses the impact and ambivalence of the Web as a place of production and dissemination of counterfactual information, highlighting how the loss of credibility of traditional knowledge validation authorities has deeper and remote roots. It supports the need and the possibility of opposing a drift indifferent to truth, understood as continuous research and as a public debate based on evidence and questions and not as dogma. Finally, it highlights a role that is not only possible, but already more than glimpsed by public libraries in relation to a problem that cannot be ignored, touching their very raison d'être. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reflects on the future of libraries, moving from Disegnare il futuro della biblioteca: linee guida per la redazione dei piani strategici per le biblioteche pubbliche (i.e. Drawing library futures: guidelines for strategic planning in public libraries), the document issued in autumn 2020 by the National Commission for Public Libraries of the Italian Library Association. The pandemic crisis accelerated a series of social, economic and cultural phenomena; on the one hand, this highlighted the capacity of adaptability and response demonstrated by the cultural sector, most of all its ability to face the digital demand and other emerging needs; on the other hand, though, the situation highlighted the gaps and inefficiency of short-term approaches and visions, and revealed the infrastructural weakness, a certain fragility in the organizations and a lack of those skills needed to face the change. In this historical moment, strategic planning can represent an important advocacy opportunity for public libraries, as emerging goals are being agreed upon with stakeholders and in economic, human and planning resources are being negotiated with funders and policy makers. In this sense, the document can become the perfect tool at the right time, capable of fostering the overall growth of political awareness of the role that libraries can and must play in the new scenario; moreover, it also represents a compass to identify the necessary programmatic, technical, administrative, economic, organizational and cultural connections, which are prerequisites to start the transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than thirty years of immigration, Italian society is profoundly multicultural, but lacks social cohesion. This cohesion could be achieved through a stable and continuous intercultural dialogue within the population. To achieve this dialogue, libraries could assume a relevant role as they are public and friendly spaces open to everyone. Librarians could create safe social spaces to build equality into the relationships between different cultures. The paper discusses the results of a comparative analysis between six different institutions that have offered excellent services to foreign citizens in their area in the past decades: the Regional library “Bruno Salvadori” of Aosta, the Salaborsa library of Bologna, the City libraries of Modena, the Lazzerini library of Prato and the Polo regionale di documentazione interculturale della Regione Toscana, the Intercultural service of Public libraries of Rome, the City libraries of Turin. In each one of these six institutions, librarians brought about a fundamental change. Instead of offering library services dedicated exclusively to foreign citizens, they managed to create library services designed for every citizen, including those with different languages and different cultural backgrounds. From this comparative analysis it is possible to extrapolate eight guidelines to create an intercultural library. This new intercultural library, by giving relevance to different cultures, must be a mirror of Italy’s multicultural society and should shape tomorrow’s society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world of publishing distribution has increasingly become an object of interest for both industrial production and the readers. The recent past showed that books must be selected carefully not only by bookshop managers for their buyers, but also by libraries for their users. Libraries themselves are examined in their relation with publishing distribution: the paper presents an initial analysis of the process enacted to pursue the goal that each individual title may fruitfully contribute to the growth of the whole library collection. The research considers only the acquisition of print monographs from some of the most important suppliers of both public and academic libraries; with these vendors it was possible to entertain a crucial and essential direct discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]