Bibliothecae.it – ISSN 2283-9364 is a scientific, peer-reviewed, open access e-journal, published twice a year. It publishes original research and reviews on bibliography, information science, books, libraries and documentations across historical and geographical boundaries. In these fields the journal aims at highlighting processes of knowledge management and dissemination in the past and in the present societies.
Alma Diamond, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
Starting from Vol. 10 No. 2 (2021) the Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (full legal code). Previous issues, from Vol. 1 No. 1-2 (2012) to Vol. 10 No. 1 (2021), are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivatives-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (full legal code).
Libri in fuga. Leggere e studiare mentre il mondo brucia. Europa, Italia 1939-1945, a cura di Chiara Conterno, Elena Pirazzoli, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Antonella Trombone https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La Biblioteca di Francesco Maria II della Rovere. Grammatiche. Dizionari. Arti liberali. Vol. II, a cura di Fiammetta Sabba, con la collaborazione di Enrica Lozzi e un contributo di Mauro Mei, Urbino, Quattroventi, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Bianca Sorbara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le donne nell’editoria del Novecento. Archivi, memorie, autorappresentazioni, a cura di Lodovica Braida e Irene Piazzoni, Dueville, Ronzani, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Valentina Sonzini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ossessione bibliofila, a cura di Antonio Castronuovo, premessa di Alessandro Danovi, Milano, La nave di Teseo, Aldus Club, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Lucrezia Signorello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Elena Gonnelli, Acque storiche. Analisi e studio comparato degli archivi termali in Italia, Torre del Lago Puccini (Lucca), Civita editoriale, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Gilda Nicolai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In “fondo” allo scaffale. Storie, momenti, personaggi nella vita delle biblioteche trentine , a cura di Matteo Fadini, Italo Franceschini e Mauro Hausbergher, con la collaborazione di Laura Bragagna, postfazione di Edoardo Barbieri, Trento, Provincia autonoma di Trento, UMSt Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Simona Inserra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In viaggio nella città del libro. La storia delle biblioteche veneziane e il progetto PRIN2022 LibMovIt, Atti del convegno intermedio LibMovIt tenutosi presso la Biblioteca Marciana il 17 ottobre 2024, a cura di Fiammetta Sabba, Carlo Bianchini, Lorenzo Mancini, curatela redazionale di Elena Gonnelli, Alessia Bergamini, Cristiana Paola, Milano, Ledizioni, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Elena Grazioli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Simone Dragone, Creation Remains. Archivi digitali, arti performative, processi creativi, Torino, Accademia University Press, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Daffra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Chiara Faggiolani, Libri insieme. Viaggio nelle nuove comunità della conoscenza, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Roberta Cesana https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A new inventory of Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto's latin library (Vat. lat. 7252, ff. 47r-168v)
The manuscript Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 7252, which, according to scholarly consensus, contains a series of ancient catalogues of the Altemps family library, actually preserves, in ff. 47r-168v, an index of Latin printed editions that belonged to Guglielmo Sirleto (1514–1585), Cardinal Librarian of the Holy Roman Church and a renowned bibliophile. This document is noteworthy, for whereas almost all other inventories arrange Sirleto’s books by format, this one is organized alphabetically. The final part of the paper consists of a comparative table of the items recorded in Vat. lat. 7252 and those listed in Vat. lat. 6163, the most famous of the inventories of Sirleto’s library.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gianmario Cattaneo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Versions of Vincenzo Viviani’s Library
In 1702 Florentine mathematician and engineer Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703) signed the end of a 234-page manuscript that listed nearly 2000 titles of works in his library. The material spanned manuscripts, incunables, and print volumes published through 1702. Since Viviani had fashioned himself as the final student of Galileo Galilei (1564-1643), the manuscript was used in the late-nineteenth century as a source for re-identifying editions of books in Galileo’s library. Using the manuscript, the digital library of Viviani’s collection created by the Museo Galileo in 2021, and a tabularized edition of the manuscript, this article provides an overview of the library and explores the strengths of each type of source for learning more about Viviani’s books and for understanding him as both an intellectual and bibliophile. The authors argue that the comparative approach offers a way to access features of the collection that are not revealed by any representation in isolation, and we advocate for future web-based projects to integrate digital surrogates of the primary source material and make the underlying data available to facilitate this kind of research.
Copyright (c) 2025 Crystal Hall, Madina Sotvoldieva, Monriseth Escobar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Two notes on Timon’s fragment 12 Di Marco: τάλαρος and φιλόσοφοι in the Museum of Alexandria
For a more correct interpretation of Timon's fragment 12 Di Marco, two additional observations are proposed, which could help better guide the exegesis of the ἅπαξ χαρακῖται, which has so far been the subject of a variety of hypotheses. The first observation concerns the meaning of the term τάλαρος, which should be translated as ‘workload,’ ‘burden,’ ‘incumbency,’ and not ‘cage,’ as it has been rendered so far. The second observation, a direct consequence of the first, starting from Athenaeus’s misinterpretation of τάλαρος, aims to clearly separate what the latter states in the fragment’s introduction from what it actually reports, suggesting that the comparison between the learned men and the precious birds is the fruit of an exegesis not derived from our fragment, but perhaps from another part of Timon’s work. If everything has a margin of plausibility and if the work of Athenaeus’s epitomizer follows a precise criterion, new perspectives would open up for the interpretation of χαρακῖται and the entire fragment.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luca Tiberi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Documents revealed: unpublished letters from Antonio Magliabechi to Giuseppe Pianetti
Within the archival collection of Giuseppe Pianetti (1631–1709), erudite bishop and bibliophile from Jesi, the epistolary section constitutes a particularly significant nucleus. Among his correspondents stands out the Florentine bibliophile and librarian of learned Europe, Antonio Magliabechi, of whom twenty letters and six accompanying sheets are preserved, thus far unpublished. The examined corpus, accompanied by the complete transcription of the individual missives, provides valuable evidence of book circulation and the publishing trade in the siècle d’or of learned correspondence, while also offering a detailed picture of the formation of the Jesi prelate’s personal library.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ilaria Antonelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le biblioteche della Nazione. A two-way discussion on Francesco Dendena's recent book
Francesco Dendena’s recent book, Le biblioteche della Nazione. Politiche e usi del patrimonio librario dalla Repubblica Cisalpina al Regno d’Italia (1796-1805), Rome, Viella, 2023, reflects on the policies for managing library collections, and their social implications, in the decade following the advance of the French Republican armies in 1796. The geographic area investigated includes the current territories of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, then known as the Cisalpine Republic. The volume is the subject of a co-authored review aimed at highlighting the book’s points of interest: firstly, the political dimension of a reality, that of the library, fully capable of participating in the revolutionary moment in which it operates; secondly, and as a consequence of the political dimension, the remodelling of collections, spaces, and reading practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Paolo Conte - Elisa Marazzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A bibliophile from another era. Interview by Francesca Nepori
Copyright (c) 2025 Hans Tuzzi - Francesca Nepori https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Giovanni Michelucci Multimedia Library in Quarrata and the flood of November 2023. Interview with Claudia Cappellini
The intensification of extreme events linked to climate change is posing new and serious challenges to the protection of cultural heritage. Among the Italian regions, most recently affected are Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, which were hit by floods in 2023, and brought entire communities to their knees, and causing extensive damage to libraries and archives. The flood highlighted the vulnerability of cultural institutions. In particular, the case of the Michelucci Library in Quarrata, Pistoia, in Tuscany, with over 20,000 volumes lost and serious damage to the historical archive and premises, is a prime example of the critical issues that still characterize the management of hydraulic risk for cultural heritage. From an interview with the library manager, it emerges that, despite knowledge of civil protection plans and the absence of classified hydraulic risk in the area, the extreme weather events exceeded all expectations. The experience highlighted the need to update emergency plans, including “unthinkable” scenarios and specific preventive measures even in apparently safe areas. It is essential to immediately freeze damaged materials and plan structural and non-structural interventions such as digitisation, staff training and the creation of collaborative networks with institutions and citizens. The 2023 flood is therefore both a warning and an opportunity: only through an integrated, forward-looking and participatory approach will it be possible to ensure the protection and transmission of cultural heritage to future generations, transforming every tragedy into an opportunity for growth and strengthening of communities and their memories.
Copyright (c) 2025 Donatella Matè - Alessia Strozzi - Maura Lotti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A De Bibliothecis for Mattia Corvino: De laudibus Augustae Bibliothecae 4.198-225 by Naldo Naldi
In the fourth book of De laudibus Augustae Bibliothecae, Naldo Naldi includes, from verses 198 to 225, a passage de bibliothecis in which he briefly traces the history of ancient book collections. This approach situates the poem in honor of the Corvina Library within an enduring literary tradition and likely served as an inspiration for the Florentine antiquarian Francesco Albertini.
Copyright (c) 2025 Diego Baldi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The cyclical rethinking of Bibliography from tradition to innovation
Copyright (c) 2025 Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Woodcut papers in Syracuse. Unconscious collections for a repertoire
The book is a functional object and, beyond its informational value in terms of text, it carries within it a wealth of data relating to material culture and a habitus construendi that lends itself to different fields of analysis. The result of choices dictated more or less by conservation or aesthetic needs, the book, in its physicality, represents an unwitting transmitter of signs that accumulate during its journey. This journey includes a reflection on one of the most popular types of packaging between the 18th and 19th centuries, which involved the use of decorated paper. Starting from a census of woodcut papers contained in conservation institutes throughout the Syracuse area, with the aim of creating a reference repertoire intended as a working tool to accompany the cataloguing activity, 477 different decorations were identified and codified, many of which were produced in Bassano and could represent a starting point for subsequent implementations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rosalia Claudia Giordano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Johann Schwarzkopf’s De Bibliotheca Augusta between 1649 and 1656
First published between 1649 and 1656, Johann Schwarzkopf’s De Bibliotheca Augusta quickly became a key reference for reconstructing the history of the Wolfenbüttel library, established by Duke August the Younger of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Though celebratory in tone, the laudatio was rich in details and data, serving as a source of inspiration and a reference point for later works by Samuel Closius and Hermann Conring.
Through the critical thinking of Filiberto Menna: the reorganization of the Filiberto and Bianca Menna Foundation library
This article reports the experience of the reorganization and inventorying of the library of the Filiberto and Bianca Menna Foundation - Center for the Study of Contemporary Art, located at the former Casa del Combattente in Salerno. The personal collection of Filiberto Menna, art critic and politically active intellectual, constitutes the main nucleus of the Foundation, established in 1989 following his death. The recent reorganization, which took place in 2024, represents an opportunity to include this important book collection in the broad debate regarding ‘author libraries’. First of all, an analysis of the contents of the forty shelves that make up the library was conducted, organizing a schematic work in which, for each shelf, the location and bibliographic information of each book unit are reported. The analysis of the material allowed us to restore Filiberto Menna’s interests, the creation and evolution of his critical thinking. The notes of ownership and the handwritten annotations present in the volumes outline an attentive reader, who loved to note down the suggestions that the texts aroused in him. Finally, an in depth analysis is reported regarding the notes of ownership and the dedications present within the book units, reported in the “Notes” section of the inventory work. The following article also presents the complete list of dedications in the appendix.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alberto Landi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Louis-Sébastien Mercier and the power of books in the utopia of the Enlightenment: the role of the library in L'An 2440
This article examines the role of books and libraries during the Age of Enlightenment through the lens of Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s work, a prominent figure of French Enlightenment thought. Central to the article is his novel L’An 2440, rêve s’il en fut jamais (1770–1771), which may be considered both a manifesto of Enlightenment ideals and an early example of science fiction and uchronia. A pivotal chapter devoted to the King’s Library serves as the culmination of Mercier’s broader reflection on the significance of books and print culture as vehicles for the dissemination of progressive ideas. The first part of the study provides a historical and literary contextualization of the concept of uchronia, situating Mercier’s novel within broader traditions of utopian and bibliographic studies. The concluding section addresses the contemporary relevance of utopian thought and considers the library as a symbolic space of resistance, imagination, and engagement in times of social and political complexity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rossana Morriello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Autobiographies of the semi-literate: writing and reading in the memoirs of two peasants between the 19th and 20th centuries
The essay compares two autobiographies produced in rural contexts between the 19th and 20th C., in order to investigate how writing functions as a means of individual emancipation and identity construction. At the heart of the analysis are the memoirs of Raffaele Codino (1836–1912), from Liguria, and Vincenzo Rabito (1899–1981), from Sicily. While Rabito’s posthumously published autobiography (Terra matta, 2007) has already attracted substantial scholarly attention, nothing was previously known about two works by Raffaele Codino, recently discovered by Marco Francalanci. Francalanci edited these texts, accompanied by a rich introductory essay, in a new edition published by Ronzani (2024). The two works include a fictional narrative, Il trasporto del pensiero, and an autobiographical account entitled Autobiografia della storia della disastrosa vita di Codino Raffaele, both self-published in Savona in 1905 and 1906, respectively. Codino’s autobiography recounts a life marked by paternal abandonment, poverty, and various social and cultural barriers that hindered his access to formal education. Nonetheless, the text also conveys a persistent determination to achieve self-emancipation through writing – rendered in an uncertain Italian, heavily influenced by orality, and characteristic of so-called “semi-literate” authors. Il trasporto del pensiero, by contrast, is a fictional work shaped by Codino’s exposure to popular science and early science fiction literature, which he reinterprets according to his own worldview and sensibilities. A comparison with Rabito’s memoir – written in an oral register imbued with “Sicilianisms” – highlights fundamental differences: while Codino strives to imitate bookish writing, Rabito, a “narrator of pure instinct,” draws expressive power from oral storytelling. His narrative acquires a collective dimension, particularly in the passages recounting his involvement in World War I alongside the “ragazzi del ’99.” For Rabito, writing becomes a tool for personal and generational redemption – a way of making sense of a life “mistreated and much troubled.”
Copyright (c) 2025 Lodovica Braida https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The PNRR project ‘DigiLetClass - Digitizing letters of Classense Library’
The contribution illustrates the first findings that emerged from the analysis of the letters exchanged between Pietro Canneti (Cremona 1659 - Faenza 1730) and Mariangelo Fiacchi (Bologna 1688 - Ravenna 1777). The correspondence between them is still preserved in the Classense Library of Ravenna and has recently been transcribed and digitised as part of the DigiLetClass project (Digitizing letters of Classense Library) in order to create a digital edition open to public interest and use.
«Trusted stewards of cultural heritage materials». Special collections processing skills in light of the study day “Nuovi strumenti per le collezioni speciali: dalle linee guida IFLA alle alle realtà professionali”
On 7 February 2025, the National Commission for Special Libraries, Archives and Author Libraries, together with the AIB section Campania and the Library of the Agricultural Area of the University of Naples Federico II, promoted the study day Nuovi strumenti per le collezioni speciali: dalle linee guida IFLA alle realtà professionali. During the meeting, translations of two tools issued by IFLA, Gifts for the Collections: Guidelines for Libraries e Competency Guidelines for Rare Books and Special Collections Professionals, were presented. The panel discussion on the competencies of special collections professionals offered a plurality of voices and mapped out the most pressing issues to be addressed. The day ended with the presentation of the book edited by Lorenzo Baldacchini, “Le collezioni speciali: esperienze ed orizzonti. Atti della giornata di studio promossa da Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, Commissione nazionale AIB Biblioteche speciali, archivi e biblioteche d’autore”. The meeting addressed some key issues in the treatment of special collections. Firstly, the terminological issue, which was also addressed in relation to foreign vocabularies; the difficult management of the complexity inherent in such collections; the need for hybridisation of skills; the role of special collections in relation to community involvement and public history; university training of future professionals and the regulatory framework governing the certification of skills.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tania Maio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Ambrogio Borsani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Iter Iaponicum: post-pandemic resumption of the Census of ancient Italian manuscripts and editions preserved in Japan. Early surveys of the vernacular Petrarch
This essay reports the resumption of the census of early books in Italian language held in Japan, interrupted during the pandemic. Here, the first outcome of the research is anticipated, focusing on the manuscripts and 16th century editions of Petrarch’s works consulted at university libraries. A sample of the information on provenance, circulation, use and owners is offered. The survey also highlights some of the key figures of the Japanese cultural reform who, between the 19th and 20th centuries, opened up to Western culture and contributed significantly to the diffusion of Italian texts in Japan.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marco Daniele Limongelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Alfredo Serrai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Giovanni De Luna, Linda Giuva, Un monumento di carta. La Segreteria particolare del Duce, 1922-1943, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Federico Valacchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cristina Cavallaro, Gioele Solari maestro dei maestri. La sua eredità nel patrimonio documentario dell’Università di Torino, con la collaborazione di Giuliana Borghino Sinleber e Paola Novaria, presentazione di Francesco Traniello, Roma, Vecchiarelli, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Vincenzo Trombetta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Luciano Floridi, Filosofia dell’informazione, Milano, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2024
A libro aperto. Le esposizioni bibliografiche tra passato e futuro, a cura di Pierfilippo Saviotti, introduzione di Klaus Kempf, conclusioni di Isabella Fiorentini, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Matilde Operato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Anna Busa, Comunicare la biblioteca al tempo dell’IA. Strategie e nuovi scenari da esplorare, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Moroni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Top Ten Fictional Narratives in Early Modern Europe. Translation, Dissemination and Mediality, edited by Rita Schlusemann, Helwi Blom, Anna Katharina Richter, Krystyna Wierzbicka-Trwoga, Berlin, Boston, De Gruyter, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Elisa Marazzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Federico Valacchi, L’archivio aumentato. Tempi e modi di una digitalizzazione critica, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Sara Manali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Concetta Damiani, Pierluigi Feliciati, I Farnese tra Roma, Parma e Napoli: una storia archivistica. Dispersioni, perdite e prospettive per la ricerca, Macerata, EUM, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Stefano Gardini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Silvia Tripodi, L’archivio di Goliarda Sapienza, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Concetta Damiani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Transnational Books for Children 1750-1900. Producers, consumers, encounters, edited by Charlotte Appel, Nina Christensen, Matthew O. Grenby, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Carnelos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Il Fondo Giorgio Bert nella Biblioteca dell’ISS: una raccolta per la medicina narrativa, a cura di Vittorio Ponzani, catalogo a cura di Maria Alessandra Falcone, Ornella Ferrari, Paola Ferrari, Maria Salvatorina Graziani, Roma, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Alessandra Boccone https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Giovanni Solimine, Leggere in biblioteca, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Bilotta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le stagioni dell’erudizione e le generazioni degli eruditi. Una storia europea (secoli XV-XIX), a cura di Jean Boutier, Fabio Forner, Maria Pia Paoli, Paolo Tinti, Corrado Viola, Bologna, Clueb, 2024
Guerriera Guerrieri librorum domina. Una bibliotecaria tra Napoli e Cortona, a cura di Sergio Angori, Firenze, L. S. Olschki, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Lorenzo Baldachini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Eleonora Cardinale, Lo sguardo dell’archeologo. Calvino mai visto, Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Silvia Tripodi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cristina Dotta Ortega, Organizar para socializar: a função social da mediação documentária, Marília, Oficina Universitária, São Paulo, Cultura Acadêmica, 2024
Copyright (c) 2024 Bianca Sorbara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Incunaboli a Monreale. Biblioteca comunale Santa Maria La Nuova e Biblioteca del Seminario arcivescovile Ludovico II de Torres, a cura di Enza Agrusa, Domenico Ciccarello, Simona Inserra, Valeria Mercurio, Marco Palma, Marzia Sorrentino, Roma, Viella, 2024
Copyright (c) 2024 Valentina Sonzini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Jacopo Narros, Il Gran Sottisier. Mirabilia, falsi e plagi nel giornalismo letterario di Giovanni Pellegrino Dandi, Milano, Milano University Press, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Andrea Moroni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lorenzo Luatti, I libri per le scuole italiane all’estero (1890-1943). Storia e figure, Milano, Unicopli, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Elisa Marazzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Biblioteche adriatiche. Storie e destini, a cura di Federica Formiga, Dueville, Ronzani, 2024
Copyright (c) 2024 Simona Inserra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le collezioni speciali: esperienze ed orizzonti. Atti della giornata di studio promossa da Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, Commissione nazionale AIB Biblioteche speciali, archivi e biblioteche d’autore, AIB Sezione Lazio (Roma, 14 ottobre 2022), a cura di Lorenzo Baldacchini, Roma, Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Monica Fiore https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Beni privati e interessi pubblici. Storia e attualità delle biblioteche accademiche italiane. Atti del Convegno, Rovereto, 4 ottobre 2019, a cura di Alessandro Andreolli, Trento, Scripta edizioni, 2022
Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca Aiello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sustainable libraries: a professional challenge and commitment to action, of indispensable and urgent relevance
Copyright (c) 2024 Francesco Giuseppe Meliti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The legal, political and military scans: from Volume 10. Law, Politics, Militaria, Technology
Volume 10 of the series La Biblioteca di Francesco Maria II Della Rovere contains the reconstruction bibliographical reconstruction of a portion of the Libraria durantina that belonged to the last Duke of Urbino. The precious collection was semantically organised into seventy shelves and became in 1667 the founding nucleus of the Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina in Rome by will of Pope Alexander VII. The Alessandrina also holds the manuscript 50, dating from the first half of the 17th century, which contains the catalogue of the roveresca collection arranged alphabetically by authors and titles. Through transcription of the codex, it was possible to search for the editions in modern catalogues and, subsequently, to identify the specimens belonging to the Duke kept in the Biblioteca Alessandrina, easily recognisable thanks to the possession note ‘VR’ written in ink on the title pages. Enriched with a wealth of photographs, Volume 10 is devoted to seven of the above-mentioned seventy scans and has led to the identification of more than 1,500 editions pertaining to the classes of Ius Canonicum, Ius Civile, Ethica, Oeconomica, Politica, De principatu, De re aulica, Moralia varia, Sententiae, Proverbia, Rhetorica, Poetica, Historica, De re Militari Architectura et Mechanicis. The legal sections have been analysed in the essay that opens the volume, while with this short contribution we would like to focus on some subsections focusing on the education of children and women, praise and criticism of women, and paremiographic literature.
Copyright (c) 2024 Saveria Rito https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Sempre con un libro fra le mani”: dedication and wisdom in the library of Marcello Andria
Copyright (c) 2024 Marcello Andria, Alessandra Boccone https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Storia della Biblioteca Berio of Luigi Marchini: reflections about the recent printed edition
As part of the events celebrating its bicentenary, the Biblioteca Civica Berio has published Luigi Marchini’s volume on the history of the institution. The unpublished work offers a detailed narrative from the birth of the Berio collection in the eighteenth century to the Second World War, with an appendix edited by Laura Malfatto to complete the contemporary history of the institution. The article summarises the introductory speeches given at the presentation of the volume on 22 May, focusing on the author - a bibliophile and bibliographer - and the importance of the work for the history of libraries in general.
Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca Nepori, Graziano Ruffini, Valentina Sonzini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Collezione di pubblicazioni coloniali italiane and the Library of the Ministry of Colonies (1911-1945)
The Collezione di pubblicazioni coloniali italiane, the cartographic collection and the photographic collection of the Central Directorate of Colonial Affairs (Direzione Centrale degli Affari Coloniali) of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were assembled in early 1911 by a group of colonial officers and scholars for the Turin International Exhibition (Esposizione Internazionale di Torino), which took place between 29th April and 19th November, 1911. The work was carried out with the aim of representing what Italy could produce at an institutional level in the field of ‘colonial culture’, and to demonstrate what Italian colonial institutions could do in order to generate interest and propaganda. In December 1911, the aforementioned group was framed in a new Research Office (Ufficio Studi). While the ‘Esposizione’ was still open, on 29 September, the Italo-Turkish War began, ending the following year, on 18 October. A month later, on 20 November 1912, the Ministry of Colonies (Ministero delle Colonie) was born. After a brief transition period, the Research Office moved to the new Ministry and remained active for almost half a century: documents tell us that it worked until a few years after the closure of the Ministry of Italian Africa (Ministero dell’Africa Italiana, 1953) within the Office for the Affairs of the Suppressed Ministry of Italian Africa of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Ufficio per gli Affari del Soppresso Ministero dell’Africa italiana della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1954-55). Together with the Research Office, the three collections - which currently stand among the most important bibliographic, cartographic and photographic sources concerning Africa and the Italian colonies in Italy - were transferred. This work follows in detail the events that led to the formation of these collections and lists the material that is still available at the “IsIAO Library” - African and Oriental Collections of the National Central Library of Rome (“Biblioteca IsIAO” - Sala delle Collezioni Africane e Orientali della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma).
Copyright (c) 2024 Lorenzo Declich https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Art and art history in cultural publishing of the second half of the 20th century
The paper presents some reflections inspired by Editoria e storici dell’arte nell’Italia del secondo dopoguerra, edited by Paolo Soddu and Franca Varallo (Viella, 2024). The chapters of this book survey some episodes and figures of the process that led historiographic-artistic studies to be assimilated with cultural publishing, thus gaining a wider and more diversified audience than experts and amateurs of the “beautiful book”. At the same time, they focus on the actors (first and foremost the “intellectual-publishers” and the publishing houses), circuits, modes, and practices of the Italian cultural system around and through the lens of historiographic-artistic and figurative art-related publishing production, including books and magazines. Therefore, by placing art and art history within the framework of cultural life in the second half of the 20th century, this volume allows us to grasp aspects that contribute to enriching our knowledge.
Copyright (c) 2024 Irene Piazzoni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Court libraries at the time of Francesco Maria II della Rovere: the reconstruction project of the Grande Galleria of Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy
After a brief introduction outlining the object of the research – the Grande Galleria, inaugurated in 1608 at the behest of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy – and a concise review of the most recent secondary literature on the subject, the contribution focuses on the sources useful for its reconstruction, which provide information about its physical and conceptual space. The reorganization of the Library in the 18th century, along with subsequent dispersions, led to the loss of traces of the bibliographic units once housed within the Grande Galleria. The digital environment and technological innovations may help reconstruct this complex and multifaceted artefact. The recreated space thus becomes not only a virtual environment but also a symbolic and conceptual context, paving the way for new studies and reflections.
Copyright (c) 2024 Erika Guadagnin, Federico Cesareo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Searching through the shelves of the «storia» of Francesco II Maria della Rovere’s library
This contribution considers a selection of volumes from the Durantine book collection that belonged to Francesco Maria II Della Rovere. The theme of the research is the 10 shelves dedicated to ‘history’ where once there were more than 1700 books that represented about 1/10 of the more than 13,000 of the original library divided into 12 subject groups. The selection of books covered by the descriptions and thoughts proposed here, identified thanks to the fifth volume dedicated to the Storia, edited by Simona De Gese and Fiammetta Sabba, of the work conceived by Alfredo Serrai and edited by Fiammetta Sabba on the Biblioteca di Francesco Maria II Della Rovere, was intended to connect the personal interests of Francesco Maria II with the national and international political events that involved the Duchy of Urbino in a period of great changes that were also reflected in the choice of books for the libraria. In fact, sifting through the books that the duke purchased with the advice of the Jesuit Paolo Beni, one discovers editorial novelties that reflect the tastes of an era as well as the ambitions of the duke, who was engaged in the years of the establishment of this modern printed library in a policy of relaunching his dynasty, which he felt he had to anchor more firmly to the origins of the prestige of the house and, therefore, to the cultural operations elaborated at the time of Federico Montefeltro, as well as the military ones carried out by Francesco Maria I.
Copyright (c) 2024 Elisa Tosi Brandi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Manuscript 50 of the Alessandrina University Library: user manual for the Libraria of Francesco Maria II della Rovere
Of the Libraia impressa that Francesco Maria II della Rovere collected and organised between the end of the 16th century and the first thirty years of the 17th century in Casteldurante - a Bibliotheca universalis of imperishable fame, transferred in 1667 at the behest of Pope Alexander VII to the newly established Biblioteca Alessandrina - a manuscript inventory still exists. It is a unique document (today B.U.A., Ms. 50) also in terms of complexity and care in its editing, divided into three parts: a systematic topographical catalogue, a catalogue by authors and works - in which the authors are listed in alphabetical order under their proper names - and a list of headwords from the surname to the name of the authors themselves. Starting with an analysis of the organisation of the sub-scansia De architectura militari (part of Scansia 42 De re militari, Architectura et Mechanicis) and comparing it with the copies that belonged to the duke that are now in the Biblioteca Alessandrina, Daniela Fugaro tackled some of the library-economic problems related to the constitution and management of the Durantine collection not only in the specific context of the Duchy of Urbino, but also after its devolution to the Holy See. The choice of the topic of fortifications and military architecture was dictated by the consideration that Federico da Montefeltro, Francesco Maria I and Francesco Maria II considered the art of war an essential tool for asserting their autonomy vis-à-vis the Papacy, to which, however, they were closely linked. The virtuous practice of arms also remained for the last della Rovere family a conditio sine qua non of good governance. To achieve satisfactory results, Francis Mary II took as his models both Francis Mary I, the valiant soldier and founder of the dynasty, and Federico da Montefeltro, the condottiere who had brought the Duchy of Urbino to its first splendour.
Copyright (c) 2024 Daniela Fugaro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The meaning and value of ancient book collections: the library of Francesco Maria II della Rovere
After a reconstruction of the origins and nature of the library of Francesco II Maria della Rovere, the author reflects on the interest and value that such a collection still holds today, especially in light of its completeness and documentary richness.
Copyright (c) 2024 Alfredo Serrai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The reconstruction of the library of Francesco Maria II Della Rovere: studies and research, reorganisation and state of the holdings. A project and a conference to relaunch it
The contribution offers an historical-bibliographical overview of the library of Francesco Maria II Della Rovere and traces the studies conducted on it since the the project Il progetto di ricostruzione della ‘libraria’ di Francesco Maria II, born between 2007 and 2008, to arrive at 2023, when at the Conference La ricostruzione della biblioteca di Francesco Maria II Della Rovere. Studi e ricerche, riordino e stato dei fondi held at the Department of Cultural Heritage in Ravenna were illustrated the results achieved over the years.
Copyright (c) 2024 Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The reasons for a choice: case study on the cataloguing treatment of the Avvisi e Gazzette collection of the Biblioteca Planettiana in Jesi
In this article I explain the manifold aspects of the work begun last year (2023) and still ongoing with the collection of Avvisi e Gazzette, which is being catalogued in the Public Library Planettiana di Jesi. Since this collection is without any doubts one of the most interesting among the Planettina library, it was chosen for the project of digitization of the PNRR - Mission 1 Cultural Heritage for the next generation - coordinated by the Marche Region. In this contribution I deal with the steps which led to the making of Pianetti family’s library, focusing in peculiar on the role of Bishop Giuseppe Pianetti. After a short presentation on the historical side of Avvisi e Gazzette, I aim to focus on the methodology used in setting up an experimental template to be published on MANUS platform,including in just one tab-mother all the elements in according to the rules of the two specific Italian platforms: in SBN for printed works and in MANUS for manuscripts.
Copyright (c) 2024 Meri Petrini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Libraries and Artificial Intelligence: we are living in interesting times
Copyright (c) 2024 Federico Meschini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The private archive: management tool and device of self-representation. Some reflections from Tasca d’Almerita’s papers
The article explores the role of private archives through the case study of the Tasca d’Almerita papers. It focuses, specifically, on how these archives can be used for mythopoetic and identity-building purposes, both familial and entrepreneurial. At the center, there is Giuseppe Mastrogiovanni Tasca’s operation of remodeling and organizing the Tasca d’Almerita archives, an aristocratic Sicilian family dedicated to wine production for generations, emphasizing how his work at the same time responds to needs of management and self-representation. The contribution, therefore, aims to highlight the importance of archives also as narrative devices, considering the implications of the ex post selection and organization of archives by the producers themselves, archivists of themselves.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sara Manali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs), and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). New tools for accessing archival and bibliographic resources
Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems offer a new paradigm for querying and retrieving information, making the resource recovery processes more efficient and accurate due to their ability to learn and generate responses based on vast knowledge databases. This paper aims to demonstrate these systems in a simplified form to initiate a scientific discussion on the possibility of integrating these technologies into archival and bibliographic resource retrieval systems, and more broadly, into cultural heritage management.
Copyright (c) 2024 Giorgia Di Marcantonio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Vieusseux and the Italian reading rooms: promotion, projects and consultations (1822-1842)
The paper, chronologically limited to the years 1822-1842, aims to outline the relationships that Vieusseux had with the owners of reading rooms and circulating libraries in Granducato di Toscana, Stato Pontificio, Regno Lombardo-Veneto, Regno delle Due Sicilie, Ducato di Lucca, Regno di Sardegna, Ducato di Parma, Piacenza e Guastalla.The paper, starting from the terminological definitions, examines the modus operandi with which Vieusseux drew up the projects for the creation of new reading rooms and circulating libraries based on the nature of its interlocutors, the geopolitical contexts in which the new institutes should have been created, and their concrete and potential users.The map of the institutions examined highlights the widespread diffusion of the phenomenon but also the precariousness of its affirmation. Many reading rooms and circulating libraries, indeed, have an ephemeral life due to the lack of a concrete and vast demand for reading, due to the constant censorial surveillance to which they were subject and, in some cases, due to the lack of professionalism of their promoters.
Copyright (c) 2024 Salvatore Leopaldi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Communicating archives. Reflections on the margins of some representation choices
Promoting and presenting archives in a way that makes them a reassuring and easily accessible context is a primary concern for archivists, who are used to working in a field driven by communication. This paper offers a reflection on models and methods of transmitting and promoting documentary collections, while drawing inspiration from recent works that propose new perspectives on the question and its forms of presentation. Does a clear distinction between the established descriptive tradition and the so-called alternative approaches still make sense? Perhaps the two approaches are much more interconnected and stable than previously thought. Are research tools “healthy carriers” of narrative? It seems so. Alongside descriptive practices, the paper will compare some effective museum practices aimed at presenting archives and highlighting the specific cultural value that archives actively preserve. From a broader perspective, after a period of great success, narratives are now in crisis. To quote Byung-Chul Han, «At the core of this noisy storytelling lies a narrative void, manifesting itself as a lack of meaning and a loss of direction». Maybe archives can offer a different interpretative and descriptive key.
Copyright (c) 2024 Concetta Damiani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
An overview on Goliarda Sapienza’s Archive
After an introduction on the recent scientific and professional reflections on personal and author archives, the contribution briefly traces the biographical and professional path of Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) and outlines the history and articulation of the recent ordering of the writer's archival fonds. On the occasion of the centenary of Sapienza's birth, through the events and structure of the archive assembled after her sudden death by her husband and heir Angelo Pellegrino and ordered many years later, an overview of the fund is outlined that broadens previous knowledge by providing further research perspectives.
Studies and readings: a librarianship expert and his books
Copyright (c) 2024 Giovanni di Domenico, Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Between knowledge semantization and generative “imagination”: architects and oracles at work
Gino Roncaglia's book L'architetto e l'oracolo: forme digitali del sapere da Wikipedia a ChatGPT offers numerous insights into the relationship between ‘cathedrals of knowledge’ and generative artificial intelligence tools. Starting from the theme of fragmentation and complexity, the author delves into the terrain of online encyclopaedias, generative AIs and neural networks, dwelling on the issue of personal memories, and then moves on to the dimension of science fiction and the virtual librarian. Among the topics of interest for those dealing with book and document disciplines in a digital context, the semantic web and its possible developments in the light of the rapidly evolving framework are mentioned.
Copyright (c) 2024 Simona Turbanti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Traveling among readers, between past and present
Starting from the publication of the volume Leggere in Europa: testi, forme, pratiche (secoli XVIII-XXI), a cura di Lodovica Braida e Brigitte Ouvry-Vial, Roma, Carocci, 2023, the paper discusses the main methodological and historiographical issues related to theme of reading, in recent years a particularly vital field of study and rich in interdisciplinary perspectives.
Copyright (c) 2024 Enrico Pio Ardolino, Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
«Memory plays strange tricks». Adelphi publishing house and the myth of origins
The Adelphi publishing house was founded in Milan in 1962, but its origins can be traced back to the late 1930s. This is what emerges from Anna Ferrando's book, Adelphi. Le origini di una casa editrice (1938-1994), (Carocci, 2023), in which the author analyses a project that matured over time and cannot be traced back to a single founder, but to different souls linked by a fruitful dialogue, initiated in anti-fascist circles, in which Luciano Foà, Roberto Bazlen, known as Bobi, Alberto Zevi and, from the early 1960s, Roberto Calasso participated. The catalogue produced by Adelphi since 1962 shows, right from the first decade of activity, a strong focus on the Central European world, the search for works in which the importance of individual experience was exalted, the discovery of psychoanalysis thanks to the contribution of the Jungian psychoanalyst Ernst Bernhard, and again the publication of Nietzsche's opera omnia, as well as the many ‘unique’ books, as Bobi Bazlen defined them. But many of those shrewd and innovative choices had to do with years before 1962, and their humus of origin emerges precisely from the archives of Foà, Zevi and other Adelphi collaborators, calling into question the mythical narrative of an enterprise that Roberto Calasso, over the years, had made coincide with his own person, as emerges from his autobiographical works, starting with Impronta dell'editore (2013).
Copyright (c) 2024 Lodovica Braida https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“I libri degli eretici non sono eretici”. A codicological reading
In the essays collected in Eretiche ed eretici medievali, La “disobbedienza” religiosa nei secoli XII-XV, a cura di Marina Benedetti (Roma, Carocci, 2023), manuscripts are studied or mentioned, observed in terms of their content and evaluated in terms of the circumstances and the people who commissioned, prepared and disseminated them. This essay, on the other hand, emphasises the materiality of the word: the paleographic and codicological characteristics of these manuscripts are analysed, also thanks to the digitised images available on the Internet, and are relevant to understanding the meanings attributed to these objects, independently of the religious and existential choices of those who held them in their hands.
Copyright (c) 2024 Adriana Paolini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The management of personal fonds. Notes just outside of the study seminar “Libri, progetti e nuovi orizzonti. Conversazioni sulle biblioteche e i fondi di persona” (University of Salerno - April 12, 2024)
The contribution illustrates the interventions, suggestions and experiences gained at the study seminar ‘Books, projects and new horizons. Conversazioni sulle biblioteche e i fondi di persona’ - held on 12 April 2024 at the Biblioteca Centrale di Ateneo E. Caianiello of the University of Salerno - putting the spotlight on the complex issue of funds of person in cultural places.
Copyright (c) 2024 Manuela Parrilli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La Biblioteca storica di Palazzo Campana, a cura di Monica Bocchetta, Giulia Lavagnoli, con la collaborazione di Costanza Lucchetti, Osimo, Istituto Campana per l’Istruzione Permanente, Fermo, AndreaLivi Editore, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Vincenzo Trombetta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gianluca Montinaro, Riscrivere la storia. Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Giovanni Battista Leoni e le biografie dei duchi d’Urbino (1605), Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2023
Francesca Nemore, Cercando il bandolo della matassa. Teorie, usi e prassi degli strumenti di ricerca archivistici, Roma, Bulzoni Editore, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Lorenzo Sergi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Arianna Leonetti, Stampato a Gerusalemme. Storia della tipografia francescana di Terra Santa tra Otto e Novecento, Milano, Terra Santa Edizioni, Musky, Cairo, The Franciscan Centre of Christian Oriental Studies, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Pierfilippo Saviotti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gilles Montègre, Voyager en Europe au temps des Lumières. Les émotions de la liberté, Paris, Tallandier, 2024
Firenze, Oxford e ritorno. Le lettere di Roberto Ridolfi a Cecil Roth e a Cecil Grayson, a cura di Marco Francalanci, Firenze, Edizioni Polistampa, Fondazione Spadolini Nuova antologia, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Graziano Ruffini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Printing and Misprinting. A Companion to Mistakes and In-House Corrections in Renaissance Europe (1450-1650), edited by Geri Della Rocca de Candal, Anthony Grafton, Paolo Sachet, New York, Oxford University Press, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Ester Camilla Peric https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Ex libris… ne pereant”. Cultura libraria e archivistica tra Umanesimo e Rinascimento. Miscellanea di studi offerti a Paolo Tiezzi Mazzoni della Stella Maestri in occasione del suo 70° genetliaco, a cura di Manlio Sodi, Mario Ascheri, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Ludovica Montalti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Digital Humanities. Metodi, strumenti, saperi, a cura di Fabio Ciotti, Roma, Carocci, 2023
L’idea della biblioteca. La collezione di libri antichi di Umberto Eco alla Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, a cura di James M. Bradburne, Riccardo Fedriga, Anna Maria Lorusso, Costantino Marmo, Valentina Pisanty, Bill Sherman, Milano, Scalpendi, 2022
Copyright (c) 2024 Marco Menato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Rossana Morriello, Dalla pirateria dei libri all’editoria predatoria. Un percorso tra storia della stampa ed etica della comunicazione scientifica, Milano, Ledizioni, 2022
Copyright (c) 2024 Andrea Capaccioni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Anna Busa, Come comunicare la biblioteca digitale, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Maria Rosaria Califano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Reimmaginare la Grande Galleria. Forme del sapere tra età moderna e culture digitali. Atti del convegno internazionale, Torino, 1-9 dicembre 2020, a cura di Erika Guadagnin, Franca Varallo, Maurizio Vivarelli, Torino, Accademia University Press, 2022
Copyright (c) 2024 Monica Bocchetta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Giorgia Di Marcantonio, Claudio Pavone nello specchio delle sue carte. Il fondo documentario presso l’Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Federico Valacchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Federico Valacchi, La verità di carta. A cosa servono gli archivi?, Perugia, Graphe.it, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Samantha Profili https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Concetta Damiani, Gli archivi dell’arte. Gestione e rappresentazione tra analogico e digitale, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Elisabetta Zonca https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gli archivi delle biblioteche: esperienze e questioni, a cura di Concetta Damiani, Loretta de Franceschi, Pierluigi Feliciati, Macerata, EUM, 2023
Ferruccio Diozzi, L'innovazione in biblioteca, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Pierluigi Feliciati https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le ontologie bibliografiche. Modelli concettuali e vocabolari condivisi per l'universo bibliografico, a cura di Maria Teresa Biagetti, Roma, Bulzoni, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Carlo Bianchini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sara Dinotola, Le collezioni nell’ecosistema del libro e della lettura. Nuovi modelli di valutazione, organizzazione e comunicazione, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Alberto Salarelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Attilio Mauro Caproni, La bibliografia culturale (ovvero non è facile parlare di sé). Attilio Mauro Caproni dialoga con Mauro Guerrini con alcune domande di Alfredo Broletti, a cura di Massimo Gatta, Macerata, Biblohaus, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Fiammetta Sabba, Alfredo Serrai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lucia Sardo, Fiammetta Sabba, I fondi personali e le biblioteche accademiche. Il caso dell’Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Roma, Bulzoni, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Roberta Cesana https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Chiara De Vecchis, «Sono stato anche bibliotecario». Eugenio Montale al Gabinetto Vieusseux, presentazione di Laura Desideri, Roma, Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, 2021
Copyright (c) 2023 Graziano Ruffini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Alberto Cevolini, L’ordine del sapere. Un approccio evolutivo, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Giulia Crippa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Francesca Nepori, I frati cappuccini tra letture e librarìe, Imola, La Mandragora, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Silvia Tripodi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Németh Gǻbor, Padǻnyi Biró Mǻrton könyvtǻra, Monok Istvǻn bevezetésével, Budapest, Magyar Tudomǻnyos Akadémia Könyvtár és Informǻciós Központ et Kalligram, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Alfredo Serrai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Rosa Parlavecchia, I libri antichi di Antonio Muñoz nelle biblioteche della Fondazione Giorgio Cini. I, Milano, Ledizioni, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Domenico Ciccarello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Elena Gatti, Francesco Zambrini tra filologia e bibliografia, postfazione di Giuseppe Frasso, [Dueville], Ronzani, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Stefano Cassini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Incunaboli ad Agrigento I. Biblioteca Lucchesiana e Biblioteca del Seminario Arcivescovile, a cura di Alberto Bellavia, Domenico Ciccarello, Vito Fortezza, Cristina Angela Iacono, Giovanna Iacono, Simona Inserra, Marco Palma, Roma, Viella, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Concetta Damiani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lorenz Böninger, Il mercato del libro nella Firenze del Rinascimento. La bottega del cartolaio Benedetto di Giovanni e la lite per l'eredità di Peter Ugelheimer. Studi e documenti, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2023
Tiziana Plebani, Alle donne che niente sanno. Mestieri femminili, alfabetizzazione e stampa nella Venezia del Rinascimento, Venezia, Marsilio, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Valentina Sonzini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Giovanna Murano, La biblioteca arabo-ebraica di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2022
Copyright (c) 2023 Saverio Campanini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Yann Sordet, Histoire du livre et de l’édition. Production et circulation, formes et mutations, postface de Robert Darnton, Paris, Albin Michel, 2021
Copyright (c) 2023 Luca Rivali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Piero Scapecchi, Il lavoro del bibliografo. Storia e tecnica della tipografia rinascimentale, Firenze, Olschki, 2023
Copyright (c) 2023 Ilenia Maschietto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Books and home library. Interview by Fiammetta Sabba (June-August 2023)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dacia Maraini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Alberto Petrucciani (♱ 10 September 2023)
After Le Monnier: Alessandro Manzoni’s contributions to copyright law
The paper aims the influence that Alessandro Manzonim had on the drafting of law no. 2215 of 2 April 1865 on the legal regulation of the author’s right, even though the father of I promessi sposi had never personally taken part in parliamentary work.
Copyright (c) 2023 Paolo Traniello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Library collections in the perspective of US “critical librarianship”
This article aims to offer an overview of collections from the perspective of Critical Librarianship or, for short, CritLib, whose principles have been applied in the United States to all types of libraries and all their functions. Last years in the US library sector attention has increasingly turned towards topics relating to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, identified precisely through the acronym DEI or EDI, with a line of studies, research and a certain “activism”, to increasingly reflect, in terms of services and collections, not only the diversities of their communities, but even the social justice.
Copyright (c) 2023 Francesco Giuseppe Meliti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
History of publishing competition, between series policies and market strategies
Bruno Pischedda’s new book is a thoroughly documented and compelling examination of the editorial series and market strategies implemented by Italian publishers in the contemporary age. It offers us a history of the book industry as an industry. While it addresses many questions that have long remained unanswered in historiography.
Free culture from the mud (flood in Romagna, 2023): libraries to be saved
This paper offers an overview of what happened after the Romagna flood of 2023 in four libraries (Trisi in Lugo, Manfrediana in Faenza, Borghi in Castel Bolognese and Forli’s Seminary). It focuses on the work of the volunteers which aimed to recovery the institutions as soon as possible. In particular, the point of view of the authors is that of students of the Library and Archive science master’s degree at the University of Bologna. They acted to support the libraries offering a qualified intervention; in fact, they managed saved books and the related catalogues. After the narration of what happened during and after the flood, there are some interviews at the librarians the authors worked with. These surveys allow to put the student’s work into a wider context which evolved and is still evolving.
Copyright (c) 2023 Elisabetta Capobianco, Giada Depoli, Silvia Dessì, Salvatore De Vita, Rossana Di Feo, Margherita Robecchi, Silvia Taschetta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Stratifications, fragmentations and dispersions: bibliographical notes for a reasoned history of the Library of Liceo Classico and Musicale «F. Petrarca» in Arezzo
This essay traces back the genesis, the bibliographic stratification and the history of the Library of Liceo Classico and Musicale «F. Petrarca», in Arezzo, starting from the constitution of its original core, attributable to the Library of the Jesuit College, founded in 1687. A complete survey of this first nucleus, now kept in the Library of the «City of Arezzo» was carried out thanks to ex libris and ownership notes. An attempt was therefore made, within this nucleus, to isolate the main donors (Francesco Redi (1626-1697) e Anton Maria Bonucci (1651-1728)). The library subsequently passed to the Vallombrosani (1773) and then to the Scolopi (1816), enriching itself with new entrances but it was also subjected to a slow dispersion due to the Grand Ducal and Napoleonic suppressions of the religious orders. Finally the original nucleus of the Jesuits passed to the Library of Royal Convitto «Vittorio Emanuele II» and from there, in the 1980s, to the Library of the «City of Arezzo». However, an ancient nucleus still survives in the current Library of Liceo «F. Petrarca», a mapping of which is here provided.
Copyright (c) 2023 Maria Chiara Milighetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Greek printed editions from a Turinese monastery in the National University Library of Turin
Greek printed editions from a Turinese monastery in the National University Library of Turin. The paper contains a first enquiry into the collection of early Greek printed books of the National University Library of Turin. It starts with the description of three volumes of the 16th century, which were owned by the monastery of Santa Maria di Piazza in Turin and until now have remained almost “hidden” in the Library. Each book contains a few quite rare editions: three Menaia printed in Venice by Andrea Spinelli and edited by Gregorios Malaxos and Vasileios Valeris (1558 and 1551). Comparisons and a first survey of the collection allowed the identification of other Greek printed books from the monastery. The same 16th century binding of the first three codices is found also in another volume with the same provenance, a Typikon published in 1545 in Venice by Giovanni Antonio and Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio (edition by Andronico Nuccio). Moreover, two other Greek printed books from Santa Maria di Piazza were identified in the collection, both printed by Aldus Manutius. Without a catalogue or specific studies, only a systematic survey of the printed editions of the National University Library will allow to outline the characteristics of the book collection of Santa Maria di Piazza, also bringing to light a possible interest within the monastery towards Greeklanguage and culture; such research will also offer more information for the history of the acquisitions of the National University Library of Turin.
Copyright (c) 2023 Erika Elia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
«Questa sie la resone de li libri che se fano del choro di Sancta Maria del Popolo»
Entrusted in 1472 by Sixtus IV della Rovere to the Observant Augustinian Congregation of Lombardy, the Roman church of Santa Maria del Popolo and the adjoining convent underwent a veritable renaissance from that time onwards, which involved not only the architectural structure of the complex, but – among other things – also its book equipment. After outlining a historical framework of the convent at the end of the 15th century and focusing on the liturgical-musical apparatus of the Augustinians of Piazza del Popolo, the contribution presents some news of interest for the study of the choir library taken from the surviving documentary sources, the current composition of the collection now in the General Augustinian Archive and some initial reflections on two graduals whose decoration is proposed to be attributed to the Master of the Barbo Missal. Finally, there is a brief report on an illuminated cutting from the choir library of Sant’Agostino in Siena, preserved in the Central Library of the Augustinian Province of Italy in Viterbo and included, together with the choir books from the Florentine convent of Santo Spirito and those from Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, in a cataloguing campaign promoted by the Augustinian Province of Italy and supported by the National Commission “Indici e Cataloghi delle Biblioteche italiane” and the Vatican Apostolic Library.
Copyright (c) 2023 Lucrezia Signorello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Department Digital Library: from a collector of digital resources to a tool for research, teaching and the third mission
The article presents the evolution of the Digital Library of the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies of the University of Bologna (DL FICLIT) as a case study of the transition from a digital repository to a tool for research, teaching, and dissemination in the digital ecosystem. Designed to publish the department’s digital collections, initial requirements have progressively been expanded and the ability to integrate content with critical contributions emerged. Additionally, there has been a growing request to offer targeted reading perspectives for different user profiles. This prompted a reconsideration of the DL’s role beyond implementation, management, and maintenance methodologies, identifying its renewed role in the department’s activities in the coming years. This resulted in changes to the DL’s editorial process, new requirements for the software platform, and a multi-year development program. A program involving several players: lecturers and researchers, technicians and librarians, students, and the public. By reframing the path taken so far, and displaying the program for the future, the article aims to contribute to the debate on the role that the DLs of Italian university departments will be able to assume in the emerging Cultural Heritage ecosystem that the Ministry of Culture foresees with the National Digitisation Plan.
Copyright (c) 2023 Paolo Bonora, Lucia Giagnolini, Alessandra Di Tella, Francesca Tomasi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Information and causation: two enigmas clarifying each other
Information and causality are two central concepts in many disciplines, both very controversial, with respect to which the article offers an overview of the main interpretations and definitions available, with particular attention to those that relate them to each other, sometimes explaining causation with information and sometimes the reverse. Among the theories of information, the ‘qualitative’ ones (which also take into consideration the semantic aspects of information) and the ‘integrative’ ones (which try to find a common root for the various forms that information can take) are especially examined, with particular regard for that of the DIKAS pyramid (data, information processes, knowledges, awarenesses, self-awarenesses). From the analysis of DIKAS and other theories of information and causation (also in the light of the concepts of informational neutral monism, of the principle of sufficient reason, of entropy and of difference) the strong link between the concepts of information and causality emerges, which can be useful to make both clearer.
Copyright (c) 2023 Riccardo Ridi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Archive of the University Library of Cagliari: formation, organisation and structure of administrative correspondence (1870-1955)
The Biblioteca Universitaria di Cagliari archive, formerly the subject of census activities, is now only partially ordered and lacking in finding aids. By examining the regulations that affected the Library from its promotion (1764) to the adoption of the Regulations for Government Public Libraries (1885), examining the administrative correspondence (1870-1955) and studying the classification and preservation practices adopted during the 19th century, this paper aims to contribute to the study of the archival history of the institution in order to foster future activities of reorganization and description of the Library’s documentary heritage.
Copyright (c) 2023 Andrea Pergola https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Observations on the Pezzana-Panizzi correspondence kept at the Palatina Library in Parma
Panizzi, a student at the University of Parma, was a frequent visitor to the Palatine Library and there he met Angelo Pezzana. In a thorough analysis of the correspondence held between the two librarians, preserved today in the Parma library, emerged how much the relationship between them was based on great esteem, admiration and respectfulness,but also on common their historical-bibliographical interests and attention to the quality of the collections. The letters between the two, dating beck from 1838 to 1859, bear the witness of exchanges of volumes, personal favors and mutual requests for texts aimed at increasing their respective libraries. Panizzi and Pezzana shared the same passion for the historical- bibliographic culture but had a different conception of the bibliological and cataloging dimension. Most of the documents cited, described or transcribed here are inedited.
Copyright (c) 2023 Paolo Marenghi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Catalonia-Italy round trip: Documentary contamination in the funds of some scholars, booksellers and antiquarians
The study of private documentary complexes, with a strong collecting characterisation, becomes a stimulus to fathom the deep links that exist between different and geographically distant institutional contexts. In this specific case, the bibliophile tendencies of some Catalan erudites and booksellers present points for reflection above the theme of the dispersion of sources produced in Italy. Analyses above the relationship between the two peninsulas can thus become an opportunity to gather some clues above the reconstruction of the origins of archival and book materials. With this in mind, the paper - starting from two cases concerning collections preserved in Barcelona - seeks to present some results of an articulated research experience.
Copyright (c) 2023 Lorenzo Sergi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
…nelle nozze del serenissimo don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della sereniss. sua consorte la sig. Bianca Cappello… The two contemporary editions of Raffaello Gualterotti
In 1579 the Giunta printers published in Florence two coeval editions of Raffaello Gualterotti’s Feste nelle nozze. The contribution presents the peculiarities of the two publications with, in the Appendix, a special focus on the etchings that accompany the second edition.
Copyright (c) 2023 Valentina Sonzini, Rebecca Piacentini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The library of Saint-Sépulcre Abbey of Cambrai in the 15th century: Management and organisation of the library heritage
The article outlines the organization of the library of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Sépulcre in Cambrai in the 15th century, studying the manuscripts coming from the monastery in that period. In the 15th century, the community resumes strongly its copy-activity: this is probably connected to the emergence of new forms of spirituality, as the modern devotion, which promoted the transcription of the texts corresponding to the new religious needs. The author traces how the community increases its library, describing the organization of spaces and how the volumes were placed; moreover, she reveals the presence of tools for consultation and research. Although there aren’t proofs of the loan service, the author brings to the light how the library was a dynamic reality, in connection with the main institutions of the city and open to the surrounding area.
Copyright (c) 2023 Sara Pretto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The library of Alexandria and the fire that did not destroy it. II: The 17th and 18th centuries
In this paper we deal with some XVII and XVIII centuries studies on the Library of Alexandria. Some of the most important contributions here considered are André Schott’s corollarium to the Lipsius’s Syntagma (1606), Gronovius’ Exercitationes academicae de Museo Alexandrino (1699), Bonamy’s Dissertation historique sur la bibliotheque d’Alexandrie (1736) and Christian Daniel Beck’s degree thesis entitled Specimen historiae bibliothecarum Alexandrinarum (1779). These studies on one hand review the ancient testimonies on the library - widened up by Galenus’ significant passages - on the other investigate the classical authors with a more severe philological method, drawing very precise conclusions. Most impostant achievements are: Museum and library, treated until then as two separate institutions, are now seen as a one, the library being part of the Museum, in consideration of its subordinated role, subject to the information needs of the Museum members. In this view more and more difficult is to place the caesarian fire, widely made responsible by the classical tradition to have burnt the library, while no damage is done to the Museum. Finally the contribution of the ancient topography of Alexandria begins to be of primary importance to sustain the literary tradition data, which undergo the conclusive examination of the archaeological point of view.
Copyright (c) 2023 Luca Tiberi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2023 Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ranganathan and the social role of Bibliography
The term Bibliography in a title of one of Ranganathan’s works (Physical Bibliography for Librarians) is unusual, because it occurs only in two other volumes that Ranganathan dedicates to reference service, and curious, because for the disciplinary field of libraries Ranganathan is famous for having spread the expression Library science. The presentation dwells on the meaning of Social bibliography and develops it in two directions: the relationship with other disciplines that deal with books, and the analysis of the concept of the book as a trinity consisting of a soul, a subtle body and a gross body. Ranganathan’s reflection on the concept of Bibliography leads him to emphasise once again the ever contemporary dimension of the library as a social institution.
A living library: Padma Shri S.R. Ranganathan (1892-1972), the Sole Architect of Indian Library Movement
Copyright (c) 2023 M. P. Satija https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The application of Linked Open Data to the creation of book numbers
The research starts from some questions left open by a previous study, which had demonstrated the possibility of creating in an automated way the class numbers of the Colon Classification of some works of Italian literature. The article examines the entire process of creating book numbers - an additional part to the class number envisaged by the Colon Classification - starting from the extraction of the necessary data from the Primo catalogue of the University of Udine and, by means of SPARQL queries, from the endpoint of data.bnf. fr. It is then shown how, through the use of the OpenRefine software, the data were organised and the notation of the publications examined was created. The research thus confirmed the possibility of automated or semi-automated creation of class numbers for works and demonstrated the feasibility of creating book numbers.
Copyright (c) 2023 Caterina Licul https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The origins of the Reference: analysis and development of the service
This paper analyzes the origins and development of the reference service and how it has become the most important practice within libraries. Through a historical investigation that begins in the second half of the nineteenth century and continues beyond the middle of the twentieth century, the diffusion of this activity in its various components and ramifications is outlined, focusing on the application differences present in the various types of library institutions. The research analyzes the causes that led to the birth of this activity, which has completely revolutionized the way of perceiving libraries and their work. Using the sources of the main authors who have dealt with this topic, it is possible to understand the growth of the concept of “assistance” towards readers, its various extensions and above all the consequences that these ideas had on the evolution of the image of libraries within the society.
Copyright (c) 2023 Paolo Cucchetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Library geopolitics: Camerani, Ranganathan and the democratic reconstruction of the AIB
Starting from 1933, when the first Italian review of a work by Ranganathan signed by Vittorio Camerani (1898-1961, librarian of the International Institute of Agriculture) appeared on the pages of «La Bibliofilia», there was a fruitful relationship between them. It was in particular on the proposal of Ranganathan, with the crucial intermediary of Camerani and Francesco Barberi, that the 17th Session of the IFLA and the Congress of the FID could take place in Rome in September 1951 (and this proved decisive for the return of the AIB in IFLA after the events related to the war). Ranganathan, as known, did not take part in the events and so far any stay in Italy had remained unknown. Also thanks to unpublished documents preserved in the AIB archive, the report studies the relationship between Ranganathan and Camerani and light up on the very brief episodes of the librarian in Italy carried out during his European travels.
Copyright (c) 2023 Enrico Pio Ardolino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ranganathan’s Legacy and Implications of The Five Laws of Library Science on School Librarianship: An Exploratory Study
The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged school libraries, affected their services and activities in many ways and led to changes, such as, for instance, reduced opening hours and services, library spaces transformed into a classroom, closures, but also the development of digital collections and delivery of remote services. In such a complex and ever-changing context, the school librarians’ educational role might have been challenged as well. A sound preparation both in education and library science constitutes a steady basis that helps face and overcome disruptions and change. The outstanding works of S.R. Ranganathan are widely recognized for their innovative contribution to library and information science, including school librarianship. In his book New Education and School Library: Experience of half a century (1973), Ranganathan points that the school library is central in the learning and teaching process; its program and several components promote reading, educate to information, inspire and enable users to become critical thinkers and responsible citizens. The Five Laws of Library Science apply to the field of education and school librarianship, too. This contribution aims at presenting an overview of Ranganathan’s legacy in the school library context and, in particular, the relevance of The Five Laws of Library Science in the nowadays’ school librarianship, based on the findings from a self-responding questionnaire, that was distributed through library associations’ list-servs and administered online in March April 2022. Although limited in number, the respondents (28 in total from different continents, except Africa) provided data, comments, and reflections that constitute the basis for further investigation and actions.
Copyright (c) 2023 Luisa Marquardt, Raj Kumar Bhardwaj https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ranganathan between philosophical and epistemological dilemmas: around the problem of Library Science “scientificity” in the 1930s
This paper is to carry out a debate on Ranganathan’s epistemological and methodological dilemmas at the beginning of his bibliographic production in Library Science in the 1930s. As a consequence, the paper point out some interpretations of a given Brazilian hermeneutic about Ranganathan’s work. Our interests are mainly to contribute to the understanding of the philosophical and epistemological role of Ranganathan’s thought. The results demonstrate Ranganathan’s philosophical-epistemological relevance, from logic to pragmatics, from deductive constructions to the social and cultural theories of Library Science. Ranganathan’s philosophy allows us to go from the transcendental plane to the plane of action – from philosophy to the epistemological scheme of a field (its scientificity), to its empirically proven theories (the praxis that transforms reality through the scientific method). It is, therefore, a political philosophy of Library Science, oriented towards the horizon of a documentary democracy.
Copyright (c) 2023 Gustavo Saldanha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ranganathan and international professional associations
This paper aims to analyse Ranganathan’s involvement in international professional associations; specifically, it will look at his contributions within IFLA and the Indian scholar’s activity within FID (Fédération Internationale d’Information et de Documentation). Although Ranganathan’s involvement in IFLA initiatives is mainly related to cataloguing issues, there is no lack of more general reflections on the role the international association should play and its positioning in relation to ‘non-Western’ countries. His participation in FID, on the other hand, is characterised by his active involvement in the creation of FID/CA, FID Committee on Classification Theory.
Copyright (c) 2023 Lucia Sardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Between scientific communication, document science and information science: Ranganathan and documentation in the 1950s and 1960s
The post-World War II years represent a moment of international reflection on the concept of Documentation, due to the technological-scientific impulse and the constantly growing informational phenomena. Already in 1934, the discussion was outlined by Otlet, giving rise to reflections destined to channel the interests of librarianship and the nascent science of information. An analysis of the process of Ranganathan’s elaboration of the concept of Document and Documentation is proposed in order to understand how the author positions himself, in the rich dialogue involving eminent voices in the field of documentation, from Otlet (1934), Briet (1951) to neo-documentation theorists, in an attempt to better historicize his contribution to the development of Information Science.
The concepts of Document and Documentation from the perspective of Ranganathan
This work, presented in May 2022, at the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the death of Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1892-1972), takes as its starting point the book Documentation: genesis and development, published in 1971. This book is the result of a conversation that Ranganathan had with young librarians in Bangalore, India, in 1970. The purpose is to reconstruct the central concepts contained in his work, which are the document and Documentation, from the conception of a Ranganathan at the end of his days, whit a wealth of experiences, memories and trips.
Copyright (c) 2023 María Arminda Damus https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan’s “Library Tour” (1948): the construction of the Indian librarian self through a ‘tour of the West’
The paper analyzes the most consistent travel testimony transmitted by Ranganathan, that relating to his journey in Europe and America in 1948. Through the analysis of the editorial and content structure of the Library Tour, the following aspects will be illustrated: the type of experience or history conducted from the Indian librarian, the planning and conduct of this travel, the professional and scientific reflections that this allowed him, in particular on library science and librarianship, thus responding to the expectations of an Indian government eager to justify and consolidate the independence achieved also through the training sectors and information.
A Conference in memory of the 50th anniversary S.R. Ranganathan’s (1892-1972) death (Cremona, University of Pavia, May 23rd, 2022)
Copyright (c) 2023 Carlo Bianchini, Lucia Sardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Jean-Yves Mollier, Storia dei librai e della libreria dall’antichità ai giorni nostri, traduzione di Alberto Bracci Testasecca, con un saggio di Elisa Marazzi, Roma, E/O, Bologna, NW consulenza e marketing editoriale, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Erica Bertelegni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gabriella Giannachi, Archiviare tutto. Una mappatura del quotidiano, traduzione italiana a cura di Elisa Dalgo e Flavio Iannelli, Roma, Treccani, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Elena Gonnelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Paola Castellucci - Sara Mori, Suzanne Briet nostra contemporanea. Con la prima traduzione italiana di ‘Qu’est-ce que la documentation?’ (1951), Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Lucia Sardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Maria Teresa Biagetti, La scienza dell’informazione. Identità ed esperienze, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Alfredo Serrai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Culture e funzione sociale della biblioteca: memoria, organizzazione, futuro. Studi in onore di Giovanni Di Domenico, redazione a cura di Anna Bilotta, Roma, Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Domenico Ciccarello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Vincenzo Trombetta, La stampa a Napoli nell’Ottocento. Una storia per generi editoriali, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Giancarlo Petrella https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ranieri Varese, Materiali per lo studio della produzione a stampa nella Ferrara del XVIII secolo, postfazione di Maria Gioia Tavoni, Bologna, Pendragon, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Valentina Sonzini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Erika Guadagnin, La ‘Philosophia’ nella Grande Galleria. Un modello bibliografico per reimmaginare le collezioni dei duchi di Savoia, Milano, Ledizioni, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Fiammetta Sabba https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Il patrimonio culturale della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna e della città allo specchio dei viaggiatori europei. Esplorazioni tra la prima modernità e l’era contemporanea, saggi e catalogo a cura di Chiara Conterno e Fiammetta Sabba, con la collaborazione di Andrea Moroni ed Elisa Pontini, Bologna, Bologna University Press, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Loretta De Franceschi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Paola Zito, Granelli di senapa all’Indice. Tessere di storia editoriale (1585-1700), seconda edizione rivista e aggiornata, Macerata, EUM, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Francesca Nepori https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dennis Duncan, Indice, storia dell’. Dai manoscritti a Google, l’avventurosa storia di come abbiamo imparato a orientarci nel sapere, traduzione di Chiara Baffa, Milano, UTET, 2022
Erasmo da Rotterdam, Paralleli ovvero Similitudini, a cura di Carlo Carena, testo latino a fronte, Torino, Einaudi, 2022
Lorenzo Baldacchini, Il mio lungo viaggio tra libro antico e biblioteche, Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Valentina Sestini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Le Bibbie dei Valdesi. Le collezioni delle biblioteche valdesi di Torre Pellice e Roma, a cura di Marco Fratini, Lorenzo Di Lenardo, Stefania Villani, Torre Pellice, Centro Culturale Valdese, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Lorenzo Mancini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2022 Lucio Gambetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Le biblioteche dei musei e le biblioteche come musei”: a seminar as part of RO.ME - Museum Exhibition (National Central Library of Rome, 16 November 2022)
This contribution provides a brief report on the papers presented during the seminar entitled “The libraries of museums and libraries as museums”, held in the afternoon of November 16, 2022 at the Sala Macchia of the National Central Library of Rome, promoted and organized by Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura of the Compagnia di San Paolo as part of RO.ME – Museum Exhibition.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sara Dinotola https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On the border of some correspondences: Teresa Lodi in Florence after World War II among papyri, manuscripts and ancient books
The paper intends to deepen, through the study of published and unpublished correspondence and through the analysis of the relationships with some librarians and scholars of the time, the role of Teresa Lodi (1889-1971), librarian and director of the Laurentian Library. In particular, the management of purchases, the conservation and the use of papyrus and parchment materials and books in general are analysed.
Copyright (c) 2022 Francesca Aiello, Simona Inserra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Digital Living Archive and the construction of a participatory cultural memory in the DARE-UIA project (Digital Environment for collaborative Alliances to Regenerate urban Ecosystems in middle-sized cities)
Living Archives perform a function of social memory sharing, which contributes to building social bonds, communities, and identities. This potential lays in the ability of Living Archives to put together an archival function, which allows with the conservation and transmission of memory, with an artistic, performative and creative function linked to the present. As part of the DARE-UIA (Digital environment for colaborative alliances to regenerate urban ecosystem in middle-sized cities) project, the creation of a living digital archive made possible to create a narrative that would consolidate the cultural memory of the Darsena district of the city of Ravenna. The aim of the project is to stimulate the urban regeneration of a suburban area of a city, enhancing its cultural memory and identity heritage, through digital heritage tools. The methodology used involves various digital storytelling actions necessary for the overall narrative using georeferencing systems (GIS), storymaps and 3D reconstructions for a transversal narration of historical content such as personal and institutional historical photos and to enhance the industrial archeology heritage of the neighborhood. The aim is the creation of an interactive and replicable narrative in similar contexts to the Darsena district in Ravenna. The Living Archive, in which all the digital contents are inserted, finds its manifestation towards the outside with the form of a museum spread throughout the neighborhood, making the contents usable on smartphones via QR codes and totems inserted on-site, creating thematic itineraries spread around the neighborhood. The construction of an interactive and engaging digital narrative has made possible to enhance the material and immaterial heritage of the neighborhood by recreating the community that has historically always distinguished it.
Copyright (c) 2022 Giulia Cardoni, Francesca Fabbri, Alessandro Iannucci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From bibliometric indicators to qualitative analysis: the valorisation of peer-review in the evaluation of scientific research
The use of bibliometric indicators, and in particular of the Impact Factor of journals in evaluating the scientific production of researchers, has recently been subjected to international review, highlighting the need to reconsider the peer-review activity as a procedure that allows to recognize the different activities connected to the research of scholars. The article discusses some reports published internationally – DORA, The Leiden Manifesto, Report of the European Commission of 2021 – and highlights the significant connection between good evaluation practices and the Hong Kong Manifesto, dedicated to research integrity and the ethics of research evaluation.
Copyright (c) 2022 Maria Teresa Biagetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
NATO Archives Online: a source system for the history of international relations
This article aims to evaluate the nature, structure and potential of the digital archives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) not only from the archival point of view but also for their usefulness in the frame of the history of international relations. The first part of the work deepens the context of the history of international relations, starting from the definition of the discipline and then reflecting -in a general way- on the types of archival sources available in this regard. In this sense, it will be proposed a brief review of the historical evolution of the concept of diplomatic sources, analysing their characteristics and fields of application in relation to the nature of the different producers involved. Then the work shifts to the specific physiognomy of the NATO archives, focusing on the profile of the producer and the characteristics of the digital documentary material available. In this paragraph, therefore, we try, first of all, to provide an exhaustive description of NATO, from its historical origins to its legal evolution, up to the role it plays today in a post-Cold War world. Subsequently, a description of the funds available online is provided. This description is supplemented by the elements necessary to evaluate and allow the use of these sources both from a technical-archival point of view and from that of the history of international relations. Finally, the last part reflects on the physiognomy of a web-based archive and on the potential that it could expresses, highlighting opportunities and critical issues.
Copyright (c) 2022 Maddalena Valacchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Virtual exhibition: a return to the past
Exhibitions have become increasingly important for libraries and many of them consider exhibition activity as part of their core business. Digitisation and the digital transformation phase have further reinforced this trend. Virtual exhibitions can compensate for many of the disadvantages that traditional exhibitions had, and at the same time offer all the advantages related to the Internet: they can be viewed and visited anywhere in the world and at any time, they have significantly lower costs with regard to the problems of transferring, and securing for transfer, the authentic works to be exhibited, and they tend to be and potentially permanent exhibitions. Examples of virtual exhibitions include the bavarikon portal, which has been developed and operated by the State Library of Bavaria for almost 10 years with increasing success. In this case we are faced with a return to the common origins of libraries and museums and at the same time with the emergence of a new form of cultural transmission, based on images, figures, iconic representations, i.e. what has been called the iconic turn for some years now.
Copyright (c) 2022 Klaus Kempf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Martino’s Fragments: a personal library and its emblematic story
The personal library of Martino Mario Moreno, a diplomat who worked in the Italian colonies and became a scholar of Semitic and Cushitic linguistics, as well as of Islam and Arabic literature, has undergone a troubled history, marked by the fate of the institutions that have received it each time. The article presents this story, and attempts at putting back together the volumes which formed Moreno’s personal librray, and partially reconstruct his personal relationships on the basis of ownership marks, dedications and other information recovered from his volumes.
Copyright (c) 2022 Oscar Nalesini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
For science and pleasure: archival sources for the study of thermal libraries
In Italy, spas boast a centuries-old tradition, yet it is only in relatively recent times that they have been organised and structured as true spa enterprises. Enterprises with production axes differentiated over time, which flank the well-being of the body with recreational activities for the spirit and which are building an accurate infrastructural network. Witnesses to this union, which has changed over time, are the papers produced by the public or private spa organisations themselves. These are complex archives, still to be studied and explored in depth, but which present peculiar characteristics and broad polysemies. They are treasure troves of memories that contain papers intrinsically connected to book and museum collections: in some cases, true hydrological libraries are born and preserved within the establishment. The documentary sedimentation of Montecatini Terme will offer, in this sense, an interesting and unique case study to observe the peculiarities of these collections from the inside. The contribution briefly traces an institutional historical analysis of thermalism and, starting from the reference context, aims to thoroughly investigate the connections existing between these archives and libraries.
From «misero avanzo di sorci» to «tesoro»: The Arezzo Cathedral Chapter Archives between the 18th and 20th centuries
Between Eighteenth and Twentieth century the archive of Arezzo Cathedral’s Chapter is object of many operations of documents’ tidying up by the canons themselves. At the beginning they provide the archival material with inventories in order to easily find all that documents able to uphold the Chapter’s rights in case of juridical controversies, then they recognize the cultural value of their documentation and so they start to promote historical studies based on it. Afterwards the canons obtain many other funds, especially as consequence of French suppressions or by private initiative, and then they establish specifical rules for documents’ safeguard and fruition, always according to The Holy See’s legislation. The essay shows the phases and the protagonists of all those processes of production and conservation of the archival material related to Arezzo’s Cathedral Chapter’s between Eighteenth and Twentieth century, but it also contains references to the period between the origins of the Chapter in the Ninth century to the first Eighteenth century and to the current situation.
Copyright (c) 2022 Riccardo Neri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Universalis or Selecta? The classification of books on architecture at the time of printing: contribution to an analysis
The aim of this paper is about the books on architecture recorded in the two main Renaissance repertories Bibliotheca universalis and Bibliotheca selecta, to bring out the role of architectural treatises in the Renaissance bibliographic vision between the cosmology of knowledge, the topographical characteristics of knowledge and the tradition of knowledge. The analysis is considered between the architectural context and the bibliographic context where different visions of the architectural discipline build up a piece of the history of culture such as Historia literaria.
Copyright (c) 2022 Alfredo Giovanni Broletti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dated and datable codices from the 15th-16th centuries in two “minor” Milanese collections: heterogeneous materials preserved at the Fondazione Trivulzio and the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano
The article shows an overall overview and relative cataloguing records of the 16 codices dated and datable to the 15th-16th centuries mainly kept in the Archivio della Fondazione Trivulzio (serie Codici Sciolti) of the private library of the Trivulzio family, and in the Biblioteca e Archivio della Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano (Fondo Manoscritti). Paragraphs 2-4 present a summary of the codicological and cultural-historical data obtained from the analysis of the catalogued manuscripts, also clarifying the criteria for selecting the manuscript material. After a brief historical contextualisation of both library collections, catalogue records of the 16 selected manuscripts are finally presented.
Copyright (c) 2022 Elisa Bianchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The inquisitor and his readers: the case of the Malleus maleficarum
Starting from the case of the best-known manual of demonology published in the modern age, the Malleus maleficarum by Heinrich Krmer and Joakob Sprenger published for the first time in Strasbourg between 1486 and 1487, the paper studies the presence of the main treatises and works on demonology in the libraries of Italian religious orders between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the following century. The RICI (Research on the Inquiry of the Congregation of the Index) database is examined as a privileged source, which contains the lists of books sent to the Congregation of the Index on the occasion of the inquiry promoted by the Holy See.
Copyright (c) 2022 Paola Zito https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Artificial intelligence vs. intellect (i.e. cybernetics vs. computer science)
Salvatore Renna - Federico Valacchi, Le avventure di Archinia, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Eleonora Todde https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Oltre le mostre, a cura di Mauro Brunello, Valentina De Martino e Maria Speranza Storace, Venezia, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020
Copyright (c) 2022 Rosaria Campioni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Attilio Mauro Caproni, Il coraggio di sapere: la bibliografia e il suo infinito intrattenimento, a cura di Filippo Puddu, prefazione di Piero Innocenti, Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Chiara De Vecchis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La trasmissione della conoscenza registrata: scritti in onore di Mauro Guerrini offerti dagli allievi, a cura di Carlo Bianchini e Lucia Sardo, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Paolo Tinti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Annalisa Capristo - Giorgio Fabre, Il registro: la cacciata degli ebrei dallo Stato italiano nei protocolli della Corte dei Conti 1938-1943, prefazione di Michele Sarfatti, con un saggio di Adriano Prosperi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018
Irene Piazzoni, Il Novecento dei libri: una storia dell’editoria in Italia, Roma, Carocci, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Roberta Cesana https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lucio Coco, La Biblioteca di Dostoevskij: la storia e il catalogo, Firenze, Olschki, 2021
I periodici settecenteschi come luogo di comunicazione dei saperi: prospettive storiche, letterarie e linguistiche, edited by Fabio Forner, Franz Meier e Sabine Schwarze, Berlin, Peter Lang, 2022
Copyright (c) 2022 Andrea Moroni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Andreea Mȃrza, Portretul unui iluminist ardelean Bibliotecarul Imre Dániel (1754-1804), Cluj-Napoca, Editura Mega, 2020
Lire en Europe: textes, formes, lectures (XVIIIe-XXIe siècle), sous la direction de Lodovica Braida et Brigitte Ouvry-Vial, avec la collaboration d’Elisa Marazzi et Jean-Yves Samacher, Rennese, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2020
Copyright (c) 2022 Christian Del Vento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La biblioteca: crocevia e connessione di mondi, a cura di Camilla Del Grazia e Linda Fiasconi. Pisa, ETS, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Enrico Pio Ardolino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Marina Roggero, Le vie dei libri: letture, lingua e pubblico nell’Italia moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Daria Parenti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
De bibliotheca: di libri, di uomini, di idee, a cura di Gianluca Montinaro, Firenze, Olschki, 2020
Glagolitsa: studi slavistici di Storia del libro in Italia, a cura di Alessandro Scarsella, Milano, Biblion, 2021
Dizionario dei tipografi e degli editori italiani: il Cinquecento, diretto da Marco Menato, Ennio Sandal, Giuseppina Zappella, Volume II, a cura di Marco Menato, Trieste, Libreria Antiquaria Drogheria 28, 2020
Incunaboli a Cagliari, Bianca Fadda [et al.], Roma, Viella, 2021 (Francesca Nepori)
Incunaboli a Ragusa, Lucia Catalano [et al.], con la collaborazione di Giuseppe Barone [et al.], Roma, Viella, 2019
Inter prima artis incunabula: catalogo delle edizioni quattrocentesche della Biblioteca Diocesana di Lugano, a cura di Luca Montagner, Lugano, Biblioteca diocesana, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Piero Scapecchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Crossing borders, crossing cultures: popular print in Europe (1450-1900), [edited by] Massimo Rospocher, Jeroen Salman, Hannu Salmi, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2019
Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500: fifty years that changed Europe, edited by Cristina Dondi, Venice, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020
Copyright (c) 2022 Paolo Sachet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Federica Formiga, L’invenzione perfetta: storia del libro, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Elisa Marazzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Maria Gioia Tavoni, Storie di libri e tecnologie: dall’avvento della stampa al digitale, Roma, Carocci, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Giorgio Montecchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Con Leonardo da Vinci a Bologna: atti del convegno, Bologna, 15 maggio 2018, a cura di Rosaria Campioni, Bologna, Comune di Bologna, 2019
Copyright (c) 2022 Margherita Melani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dante e la Divina Commedia in Emilia-Romagna: testimonianze dantesche negli archivi e nelle biblioteche: VII centenario della morte di Dante Alighieri (1321-2021), a cura di Gabriella Albanese et al., Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale, 2021
Copyright (c) 2022 Chiara Reatti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2022 Antonio Castronuovo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The first JLIS.it Seminar: Modeling knowledge, archival and bibliographic standards compared (University of Florence, 19 May 2022)
On Thursday, May 19, 2022 the SAGAS department of the University of Florence hosted the first seminar of the journal JLIS.it on the theme: Modellare la conoscenza, standard archivistici e bibliografici a confronto. Numerous interventions by academics, librarians, computer scientists and archivists. The report of the day.
Copyright (c) 2022 Lorenzo Gobbo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The IFLA Competency Guidelines for Rare Books and Special Collections Professionals
In 2020 the IFLA Rare Book and Special Collections Section (RBSC) published the Competency Guidelines for Rare Books and Special Collections Professionals. The guidelines are divided into five chapters and are intended as a white paper for all librarians dealing special collections. The document focuses on the figure of the librarian, his interactions with the collections owned by the cultural institution in which he works, his relations with the users. A remarkable tool especially from the point of view of professional ethics, the IFLA standard defines ideal situations to which documentation professionals can look for the strengthening of their knowledge.
The publication of Federico Valacchi’s book, Gli archivi tra storia, uso e futuro: dentro la società (Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2021) it is an opportunity to reflect on the role of archives and archivists.
Copyright (c) 2022 Mario Aldo Toscano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The analysis of cartographic resources in the FRBR and IFLA LRM conceptual models: a survey of the studies
Since the publication of the Functional Requirementes for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) in 1998, the world’s leading experts on cataloguing cartographic resources have questioned the possibilities of applying the conceptual model to cartography. They tried to understand how cartographic resources could be treated in the context of an entity-relationship model, focusing on the possibilities of applying Group 1 entities and FRBR’s relations to cartography. The debate that followed led to the establishment of conflicting positions. Many of the criticisms made to FRBR also apply to IFLA Library Reference Model (IFLA LRM), the new conceptual model, published in 2017. While showing some improvements it seems to fit forcibly into the description of cartographic resources.
Copyright (c) 2022 Laura Manzoni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Search behavior on University of Bologna discovery tool: a quantitative and qualitative analysis
This article has the purpose to identify the most common search techniques of patrons in a discovery tool and if the discovery is able to provide relevant answers to the queries. This study reports on the use of EBSCO Discovery Service of Bologna University, called AlmaStart. The analyzed data refers to 8 months, from January to April 2020 and from January to April 2021. This period allowed to verify if search behavior changed over time and if the closure of the libraries due to coronavirus lockdown affected it. The data, collected by Google Analytics, are analyzed through the use of the software Microsoft Excel and Atlas.ti, a tool for the qualitative analysis and categorization of textual data. The quantitative analysis refers to all collected data, the qualitative analysis refers to 4 specific days and to all search queries that did not conduct to any results in the discovery. The qualitative analysis allowed to verify if patrons mostly conduct searches about a theme, or if they use the discovery to search known-items in order to access or to localize them. Moreover, it was possible to identify some patron’s expectations about search queries that discovery is not able to satisfy and some ideas to improve it. The result reveals that during the library closure the use of the discovery tool increased a lot, but the search behaviour remained basically the same as in the other months. Patrons use the discovery mostly to search known-item in order to reach the full text of the documents. Finally, some elements to improve the discovery tool functionality were identified.
Copyright (c) 2022 Maura Quaquarelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Authority file of personal names in SBN and Alphabetica: problems and perspectives
The article presents the results of the qualitative and quantitative analysis of SBN authority records for personal names, by the comparison of two datasets, the former based on data sent to VIAF in 2021 (PRE) and the latter on data taken from the SBN OPAC shortly after the publication of Alphabetica, the new ICCU portal (POST). The aim of the study was to establish whether the quality of the authority records actually corresponds to the requirements specified by SBN for the entries of level 90 and above. In addition, the study aimed to verify whether the system of production and publication of authority records, based on the authority levels of entries and of cataloguers, is still current or not, also with respect to the novelties introduced by Alphabetica. The analysis shows that a re-levant percentage of authority records (both in PRE and in POST) do not meet the requirements, that the choice of publication of records according to the levels of authority does not match to the standards and to the choices of other national bibliographic agencies, and that the innovations introduced in Alphabetica sug-gest a change of perspective in the organisation of SBN authority work.
Camillo Carlo Pellizzari di San Girolamo
Copyright (c) 2022 Carlo Bianchini, Stefano Bargioni, Camillo Carlo Pellizzari di San Girolamo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Citing the internet with DOIs and shortened URLs? Better not
In bibliographic citations of online documents, URLs are increasingly replaced with shorter ones provided by services such as TinyURL and Bitly or with DOI codes. These alternative identifiers, although undoubtedly useful for other purposes and in other contexts, should however be used with great caution and parsimony in bibliographic references for numerous reasons, including: 1) the invisibility of the original URL, useful to the readers for the evaluation, for the orientation and for possible searches in the Internet archive; 2) the uncertainty about the actual longevity of alternative identifiers; 3) the slight increase in the time required to reach the document you want to consult and the greater probability that at least one of the sites involved is temporarily out of use or slowed down; 4) the greater immediacy of use, universality and granularity of the URL compared to the DOI; 5) the existence of misleading ‘paper DOIs’ which refer to documents not yet available online; 6) the possibility that DOIs are automatically converted into the URLs of unofficial versions of the corresponding documents; 7) the advertising that is actually given to private companies providing shortened URLs, subtracting it from more relevant and reliable sites and publications, as well as the risk of exposing readers to further advertisements managed by these companies; 8) the risk of shortened URLs being inhibited by postal systems and firewalls that suspect them of hiding sites considered dangerous. The article also provides some tips on how to cite preprints and how to ‘limit damage’ in the event that excessively long and complicated URLs are still replaced by shortened URLs.
Copyright (c) 2022 Riccardo Ridi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Laire affair and the Roman editions of the fifteenth century in the works exchanged between Tommaso Verani and Giovanni Battista Audiffredi
The paper traces the events that led to the publication of the Catalogus historico-criticus Romanarum editionum saeculi XV – which the Dominican Giovanni Battista Audiffredi published in the context of the dispute with the French Francois-Xavier Laire and his essay on Roman typography – through the correspondence between the librarian of the Casanatense Library and the Augustinian Tommaso Verani. At the same time, the paper offers a picture of the erudite studies conducted by Verani and of the reorganizations he carried out in the archives and libraries of the Observant Congregation of Lombardy, activities that allowed him to come into contact with some of the greatest intellectuals of the Italian 18th century.
Copyright (c) 2022 Lucrezia Signorello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sicilia piangente su le rovine delle sue più belle città: story and data from the printed Reports of the 1693 Val di Noto earthquake
The paper aims to analize printed reports describing the earthquake that destroyed many cities in eastern Sicily in January 1693. In particular, this kind of printing production, called stampe d’occasione, chronicle events deemed important to the local community. These printed books also had a divulgative function of the contemporary facts, even dramatic, that involved the territory. The editions currently surveyed are present in very few copies, in most cases preserved in non-Sicilian libraries and bound inside miscellaneous volumes.
Copyright (c) 2022 Francesca Aiello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Divine markets: producing, selling and reading Dante's Commedia in the early 1470
The article examines the history of the first three printed editions of Dante’s Commedia (1472; Foligno, Mantua, and Iesi/Venice), analyzing their respective vicissitudes from a socio-economic perspective. Specifically, through a joint analysis of the relevant academic literature, the local socio-economic history, and the material provenances recorded within numerous copies, the essay intends to highlight to what degree and form commercial events such as regional fairs influenced the development and distribution of typographic products in Italy in the 1470s.
Copyright (c) 2022 Natale Vacalebre https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Italian codices in Eötvös Loránd University Library, Budapest
Eötvös Loránd University Library, which celebrates its 460th birthday this year, is one of the oldest continually operating public libraries in Hungary. The historical nature of its collection is primarily due to its continuous centuries-long operation, which is extremely rare in East-Central Europe. Furthermore, other significant factors behind the growth of its collection were the abolition of monasteries ordered by Joseph II, and a few truly generous donations. Among the latter the donation of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1877), which enriched the library’s collection with thirty-five codices, stands out. Most of these medieval manuscripts were taken to Istanbul as spoils of war during the Ottoman occupation of the Hungarian Kingdom in the 16-17th centuries. The majority of the codices “gifted back” by the Sultan in 1877 are of Italian origin, most of them being humanist manuscripts, and a dozen of them were part of the Bibliotheca Corvina, the famous collection of King Matthias I (1458-1490). They include four codices of the former collection of Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan (1450-1466). The vast majority of the forty-seven Italian medieval manuscripts of the University Library are in Latin; from among these, the autograph manuscript of Saint Bernardine of Siena is especially significant for Italians. The Dante Codex is the most famous of the four Italian-language codices but the others, a nautical handbook, an anthology of ethics, and a musicological work are also of interest. This study briefly presents each Italian medieval manuscript preserved in the Library of the Eötvös Loránd University, offering help for their further study by referring the readers to the most important secondary literature works discussing them, especially the ones written in languages of international circulation. The links to the digital versions of the discussed manuscripts available in the institutional repository of the library, namely EDIT are given, and, in case of the corvinas, the links to their description and digital copy in the Bibliotheca Corvina Virtualis operated by the Hungarian national library are included as well. Finally, the paper concludes by an excursus detailing what elements of the Italian book culture are includedinto the graduate curriculum of the programs offered by the Institute of Library and Information Science of Eötvös Loránd University. A subsidiary aim of the study is to encourage the intercultural research and professional relationships between Italian and Hungarian scholars of library and information science, which have already been boosted by the meetings between Italian and Hungarian librarians organized at the turn of the millennium.
Copyright (c) 2022 Máté Bibor, Katalin Németh, Péter Kiszl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Alexandria for Alexander: for a dating of the Alexandrian project
On the basis of Strabo’s and Athenaeus’ well known passages (Geograph., XIII, 1, 54, 5-9, Deipnosoph. I, 4, 22-33 and V, 53, 1-11) on the Aristoteles’ books, their arrival to Alexandria has to be considered as a turning point in the history of the famous egyptian library. This circumstance, together with Demetrius’ collaboration with the king Soter, makes probable that the library took an important step forward between 287 and 283 b.C. The hypothesis is sustained by the Soter’s will to honour his old friend Alexander and by Demetrius’ documented activity in the library, which must have taken place only under Soter’s reign.
Copyright (c) 2022 Luca Tiberi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Editorial. International conference "From the book pandemic to bibliography".
Copyright (c) 2021 Andre Vieira de Freitas Araujo, Giulia Crippa, Fiammetta Sabba, Gustavo Saldanha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The book in the prison system in the state of Espírito Santo: social device in the pandemic
This study the relevance of books in the prisional system of the State of the Espirito Santo and its possibilities of use in the period of the pandemic of the Covid-19 argues, either for the general aspects or the clipping established in the units of closed regime during the year of 2020. The general objective is to recognize books as social devices in this environment. The specific objectives aim at: to approach them as source for transposition of the reality of the jail; to discourse on the potentialities and limits of its uses in periods of sanitaryrestrictions in the Espirito Santo; e to argue on the importance of the book for the convicts during the pandemic. The justification resides in its social coverage for the visibility of the book as social device and right of the convicts in regular periods of restrictions during the pandemic. It`s about a qualitative and exploratory research, with use of the procedures of bibliographical research, documentary of field. In the first stage it was carried through official survey of bibliographical materials (theses, dissertation, scientific articles) and documents (laws, recommendations, techinical guidelines) for the treatment and deepening in the subject and better knowledge of the universe of the research. For the field research, interview directed to the Sub-Manegement of Education in Prisons with the intention to collect data on uses of the libraries and services of book loans during the pandemic. The results indicate that, for the application of legal regulations, relatives to the uses of books in benefit of the convicts, is necessary the understanding of its potentialities as social device in different conjunctures. The conclusions guarantee the agreement of book-device must be pandemic in the prisional system, that is, must be spread in fast and wide scale, allowing the access to different knowledge in custody of institutions that control collection and subjects.
Copyright (c) 2021 Adriana Isidório da Silva Zamite, Maira Cristina Grigoleto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bibliography out of the wardrobe: what does Brazilian information science reveals about issues of gender and sexual dissidence?
Objective: Elaboration of a bibliographic repertoire on gender issues and sexual dissidences in Brazilian Information Science from 1972 to 2021. Method: The research is qualitative, exploratory and bibliographical in nature, in which we surveyed and organized a bibliographic repertoire of scientific articles, scientific communications, theses, dissertations and books on gender issues and sexual dissidences in the field of Information Science. Result: The results shows the construction of a bibliographic repertoire with a total of 128 bibliographic sources, with 107 representing articles and periodical communications, 18 theses and dissertations and 3 books. Conclusion: We believe that studies like this are important to give visibility to gender issues and sexual dissent, which are so marginalized in our social environment.
Copyright (c) 2021 Bruno Almeida dos Santos, Nathália Lima Romeiro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Art of Bibliography in Brazil: analysis of production in some scientific journals (2014-2020)
“The Art of Bibliography” is an international seminar that, since 2014, takes place every year. The papers presented in this seminar are, from 2015, published in journals with relevance in the area of Information Science. From these papers, the objective of this work is to study the theoretical conceptions and the concrete activities related to the domain of Bibliography in Brazil. The quali-quantitative study analyzes the production on the theme to evidence the evolution of the concept of bibliography present in the scientific productionthat relates Brazil to other countries, highlighting the conceptions and activities developed by researchers. Specifically, the research seeks to identify the elements that draw the domain, through the production on the theme “Bibliography”. In view of the above, this is a study of descriptive nature, since it analyzes the content of the articles, from categories of analysis and information raised in the scientific production considered. From the selected production on the theme, it was possible to verify that the theoretical epistemological, techno-methodological and sociopolitical dimensions are present, built as categories during the content analysis.
Copyright (c) 2021 Giulia Crippa, Ieda Pelógia Martins Damian https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
«To bring light to the pious reader»: references to information sources and transmission of knowledge in the artistic recipe book by João Stooter (1729-1732)
Born in Antwerp and living in Portugal, the diamond cutter João Stooter acquired some prominence in the 18th century when he produced an armory manual and an artistic recipe book. His works were intended to improve the quality of the products created by the Kingdom’s mechanical officers and artists, making them rival foreign products. Regarding his second work, an artistic how-to-do book entitled «Arte de Brilhantes Vernises», the author found himself moved to write on a wide range of subjects – such as varnishes, paints, and glues – relating to the artisanal transformation of raw materials that the overseas trade dumped on the Portuguese market, such as wood from Brazil and Africa. At the dawn of Portuguese Illustration, Stooter gathered, tested and corrected recipes for varnishes and other artistic compounds obtained from a wide range of information sources, above all in various genres of printed books. With the result of the experiments conducted in his studio, which aimed at testing, correcting and standardizing the preparations and techniques, he composed the first recipe book of its kind to be printed in Portuguese. The work was edited by the Verdussen house, in Antwerp, between 1729 and 1732. Several copies of it were later enhanced with handwritten notes by the author. In printed and manuscript texts – which were born from his bibliographic gesture, when selecting, compiling and mediating previous records – the author developed a complex system of internal references to the contents of the book and to works taken as a source, which required the technical gesture of the artisan if added to the indicated reading path, so that a preparation could be carried out satisfactorily. Based on the proposition that the field of bibliography encompasses the history of production and uses of books, this study will demonstrate how the references defined this recipe book model, placing itself at the center of the transmission of artisanal knowledge advocated in the work.
Copyright (c) 2021 René Lommez Gomes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Searching for Conrad Gesner in the Brazilian tropics: the documentary presence of Gesner bibliographical works in heritage libraries
The paper offers a historical-bibliographical discussion of the copies of Bibliotheca Universalis (1545), Pandectae (1548) and Bibliotheca instituta et collecta (1574), by Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), present in two Brazilian heritage libraries: the Library of Saint Benedict’s Monastery of São Paulo (BMSBSP) and the National Library of Brazil (BN), in Rio de Janeiro. The contextualization and characterization of the copies are based on the following theoretical-methodological course: 1) presentation of the Gesnerian bibliographical studies in Brazil; 2) considerations on the presence of the Gesnerian editions in libraries; 3) historical comments on BMSBSP and BN; 4) historical notes and analysis of the copies of Bibliotheca Universalis (1545), Pandectae (1548) and Bibliotheca instituta et collecta (1574) safeguarded in BMSBSP and BN, highlighting their extrinsic and intrinsic aspects from their analytical bibliographical description. The copies of BMSBSP and BN have values that are expressed in two keys: 1) “universal” historical-cultural value, linked to the role of these works in bibliographical studies and in Gesnerian Studies; 2) “local” historical-cultural value, linked to the institutional context, modality and motivations of acquisition, preservation, mediation, use, control, circulation and appropriation of the copies. In the landscape of the two heritage libraries highlighted here, the Gesnerian universality - although it can be reviewed, relativized, and even tensioned in the context of the tropics - constitutes a geographical and conceptual space that includes not only the Old World, but also the New World. Indeed, the Gesnerian bibliographical works trace an intriguing and passionate historical-bibliographical thread between the 16th century polymath and the Bibliography of the Brazilian tropics.
Copyright (c) 2021 Andre Vieira de Freitas Araujo, Diná Marques Pereira Araújo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Other books, other handwritings: indigenous reports
It approaches in an unconventional way other books and other spellings present in the indigenous ways of writing, materializing and narrating their stories. The concepts of book and spelling are interpreted broadly. Activating a diversity of indigenous reports and exposing, through different thoughts, other possibilities of imagining them. Accepting the assumption that there are no unwritten cultures and that formulations about ‘illiterate societies’ are colonizing effects of an ethnocentric thought, the crossing proposed by this text is to attend, as far as possible, these other bibliographies crossed out and censored by the traditional book and by the universal spelling of Western peoples as primitive expressions. Decolonizing our bibliographic thinking is the horizon targeted by this research. Listening to the stories of the indigenous people is an endbeggining, devouring the end for the beginning. The end of the book is the cessation of its absolute, finished and universal condition. The end of the unique and western book is the beginning of the scriptural opening and its material plasticities. The strength of the concept of the book expressed in the semiophagy of the bookOunce, proposed from a differOunce (différonce), is a way of dreaming in the Amerindian way a new and, simultaneously, an old beginning: the open possibility of the book once more as a sign of freedom of self-determination from the multiple meanings of different peoples. This text brings a report of the cultivated jungle of Abya Yala – the Living Earth. Perhaps this is an endbeggining to the disconcerting otherness of the bibliographic messages that we insist on forgetting.
Copyright (c) 2021 Vinícios Souza de Menezes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A woman among men: Christine de Pizan's bibliographical gesture in The City of Dames
This paper is a theoretical and exploratory research on the concepts of bibliography and bibliographic gesture, in relation to the book The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan (1363-1431 AD). In this work, the Italian author based in France, disputes the widely revered and referencedpatriarchal bibliography, by selecting 150 female personalities who stood out in various fields of knowledge, by means of a logical argument as well as a memorial to female reputation. The discussion hereby presented is supported by the literature review performed by Eduardo Alentejo (2015) - to whom bibliography is understood both as a material and intellectual product, under the notion of repertoire, lists or subject descriptions, always guided by general policies and individual choices of bibliographers, thus related to selection, and clipping – and by the notion of bibliographic gesture, as defined by Giulia Crippa (2015, 2016). Other authors like André Araújo (2015), Viviane Couzinet and Patrick Fraysse (2019) are useful to better understand the concept of bibliography; and, to contextualize Christine de Pizan in her time, Rosalind Brown-Grant (1999), Patrizia Caraffi (2003, 2004), Diana Arauz Mercado (2005), Tracy Adams Rechtschaffen (2010), Ana Rieger Schmidt (2020a, 2020b) and Jacques Le Goff (2006). The Book of the City of Ladies was read in two versions: one translated to English (1999) and other to Portuguese (2012), both developed from the original text in Old French. The results show that, given the different existing notions of bibliography and the historical limitations imposed on women, the efforts undertaken by Pizan in this book, although apparently lacking the theoretical-conceptual delimitation of what is understood as bibliography nowadays, result in a remarkable repertoire of references, that deserve to be observed through the lens of bibliography and Knowledge Organization and considered by the field as a bibliographic gesture.
Copyright (c) 2021 Mell Siciliano, Fernanda Valle, Amanda Salomão https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Brazilian bibliographical policy? The historical and political course of the national bibliography in Brazil
It aims to understand the initiatives for the construction of Brazilian national bibliographies under the prism of political bias. From the historical context, we will seek to show how much the national bibliography is linked to the rise and strengthening of government and information regimes. It covers four periods of Brazilian history - Proclamation of the Republic (1889), Vargas Era (1930-1945), military dictatorship (1964-1985) and democratic reopening (1985-) - observing how they reverberate in distinct bibliographic policies that fostered accelerated construction or erasure of the Brazilian national bibliography, as well as the institutions involved in its construction. Uses as theoretical framework Fonseca (1972), Maeda (2016) and Juvêncio (2016) seeking to delimit the history and trajectory of the construction of national bibliographies in Brazil, in addition to González de Gómez (2002, 2012, 2015) and Braman (2004) to elucidate what an information regime is. As a method, it uses a bibliographic-documental research, based on primary sources on the subject. It concludes that the efforts undertaken in the construction of bibliographies over the last 100 years in Brazil derive from the action of different informational regimes. Whether with the emergence or decline of institutions, as well as the greater or lesser attention given to the elaboration of the repository of national intellectual production, he realizes that there is a bibliographic political gesture, even if undeclared, that populates the efforts to elaborate a national bibliography.
Copyright (c) 2021 Carlos Henrique Juvêncio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bibliographical principles in Brazilian degree courses in Library Sciences: an analysis of the epistemological curricular specificity
The field of documentary mediation actions in a bibliographic approach deals with referencing and disseminating knowledge through systems, products and services that promote the qualified use of information by an audience, aiming at its appropriation. The Bibliography course presents concepts and operations that form the fundamental basis of the described field. These fundamental bibliographic aspects – or bibliographic principles – constitute the structuring axis of curricular proposals aimed at professional formation and research. Despite the fact that bibliographic principles constitute the structuring axis of Librarianship courses, we question whether these principles are currently sufficient and properly present in the curricular proposals of these courses in Brazil. Thus, the objective of the research is to characterize the presence of bibliographic principles in Brazilian Librarianship education, through the analysis of undergraduate programs, verifying whether these programs provide epistemological specificity concerning the social function of information appropriation by an audience. Initially, a scheme of bibliographic principles and the processes and products that derive from them is presented, which allows to guide and underpin the study; then, an empirical analysis is carried out with the proposition of categories, selection of undergraduate Librarianship coursesand teaching programs, analysis and discussion. The analysis of curricular proposals indicates that bibliographic principles were not abandoned, but there was a partial erasure, often leading to a loss of focus and specificity. It is necessary to invest in curricular proposals whose epistemological specificity is easily identified and aimed at educating for the social function of the field that deals with documentary mediation actions in a bibliographical approach.
Copyright (c) 2021 Cristina Dotta Ortega https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bibliography and memory: Filippo Gesualdo's Eighteenth Lecture and Conrad Gesner's Pandectae
In Filippo Gesualdo’s work on mnemonics titled Plutosofia, which appeared in 1592, there is a chapter dedicated to the Library of Memory. In this chapter Gesualdo gives an explanation about the techniques to build up a mnemonic library. According to Gesualdo’s advice, it is possible to organize the mind just like a library, where every book could find its own proper place. The library structure would be organized by some loci, as a building, a space, a room and so on. The analysis of this kind of ordering system reveals some significant analogies with the bibliographic system used by Conrad Gesner to organize his Pandectae. A comparison between the two works highlights how both of the systems could lead to draw a mental map of the human knowledge and it shed a light on the genesis of the Gesner’s Pandectae.
Copyright (c) 2021 Diego Baldi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From bibliography to book history... and vice versa! (with the case of a fake "fake")
We are witnessing a dangerous departure from the history of the book towards sociology, of the bibliography towards the information sciences. Instead, the two disciplines must reclaim their identity. How can they do it? Reconnecting, each in its own way, to the materiality of the book. Intellectual production, in fact, is expressed through the creation of articulated objects (books) which, on paper or through bits (sometimes both together), themselves dictate the conditions for their access.
Copyright (c) 2021 Edoardo Barbieri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Bibliographical technical school (1886-1889): a 'missed' opportunity
The paper aims to analyze the regulations and the program of studies envisaged by the Scuola tecnica bibliografica – a two-year technical course established in 1886 to be given at the central national libraries of Rome and Florence – in order to outline the strategies that the Ministry of Public Education intended to implement in the field for the professional training of librarians. The unpublished correspondence accompanying these official documents between the Minister of Public Education Michele Coppino, Desiderio Chilovi and Domenico Gnoli is examined, in order to shed light on the complex events that led to perennial postponements of the inauguration of the new course up to to arrive at an inevitable and sad ending: its ‘failure’ to start.
Copyright (c) 2021 Rosa Parlavecchia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bibliography, female noun: Jules Gay and Desirée Veret
In 1861 an important bibliography dedicated to love, women and marriage was published in Paris, under the pseudonym M. le C. d’I***. The author (and publisher) was Jules Gay. He was 54 years old and had had both important political and editorial experiences. In particular, with the agreement with socialism and the ideas of Robert Owen, he propagated the principles of social and sexual equality. The influence exerted on him and his numerous publications on women by his wife Désirée Veret, a proletarian seamstress, feminist militant, but also a woman with passionate loves, was very profound. But we must not think of her as some kind of Gay muse. Rather, she was the intermediary of a special relationship between bibliography and history.
Copyright (c) 2021 Lorenzo Baldacchini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Proposal for a new methodological approach to the study of 20th century Bibliography
The constant technological revolution that we have been witnessing for decades has affected all forms of communication and, consequently, has also involved the ‘recorded communication’ that pertains to bibliographic thought and action. Since the end of the nineteenth century and especially since the first decades of the twentieth century, this has led to a process of change in the structure of all scientific disciplines, including Bibliography. This process has had two fundamental consequences for bibliography: on the one hand, it has meant that bibliography as a meta-discipline is endowed with new instruments of investigation; on the other, it changed the disciplinary scope of bibliography itself, to the point where it has found itself specialised in a number of other derived disciplines. The need to clarify what happened is particularly felt in Italy, where even in the last century the documentary and bibliographical disciplines had an important development and debate, but it is also widely felt in the rest of the European context and beyond, as demonstrated by recent occasions of international scientific and conference comparison and as highlighted by some of the recent Italian studies of Bibliography and Information Sciences. In this contribution we discuss a methodological hypothesis to investigate the problem. In particular, it is argued that the solution to the problem is to be searched in a new methodological approach that includes both a qualitative survey of the main sources of the discipline in the Italian context – i.e., the traditional survey method of Bibliography – and a quantitative investigation necessarily conducted with the decisive help of the application of Linked Data technology to the most recent production of the discipline. The twofold approach would allow to give a concrete start to this disciplinary arrangement, reconstructing the most recent process of metamorphosis, identifying the junctions and the forms (methodologies, tools, and objectives) both in diachronic and synchronic terms.
Copyright (c) 2021 Carlo Bianchini, Fiammetta Sabba, Lucia Sardo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bibliography and the information society
The paper offers reflection on the contribution that bibliography can offer to the information society. In recent decades, the role of information has become decisive not only as regards the cultural but also economic aspects of society. With the spread of the Internet, a general rethinking of information organization became indispensable. In this new scenario, the bibliography can play an important role in the context of recorded communication.
Copyright (c) 2021 Andrea Capaccioni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Models and forms of bibliographical thinking: in search of a point of view to interpret complexity
The paradigmatic transformations, rapid and in continuous acceleration, of the organization and communication of knowledge in contemporary reality make it necessary to reflect on the principles on which models and methods of the bibliographic tradition are based. This paper examines these topics: a) the elementary entities that constitute the “objects” of the representation of knowledge, from “books” to “data”; b) the description of some of the essential characteristics of the models of representation of these “objects”; c) the ways in which the perception of representations is carried out and communicated, through the recordings, giving rise to the different interfaces of bibliographic mediation, in the classic frame of the Bibliographic universe; d) the relational and holistic nature that characterizes the empirical phenomena referred to knowledge of objects, bibliographic and extra-bibliographic; e) the model profile of a possible Bibliographic multiverse; e) the general lines of a “point of view” with which to hypothesize the integration, following Michel Foucault, of “words” and “things”.
Copyright (c) 2021 Maurizio Vivarelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
L’arte della ricerca: fonti, libri, biblioteche: studi offerti ad Alberto Petrucciani per i suoi 65 anni, a cura di Simonetta Buttò, Vittorio Ponzani, Simona Turbanti, con la collaborazione di Enrico Pio Ardolino, Roma, AIB, 2021
Copyright (c) 2021 Fiammetta Sabba http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Rossana Morriello, Le raccolte bibliotecarie digitali nella società dei dati, Milano, Bibliografica, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Lucia Sardo http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Le biblioteche dell’alta formazione musicale: prove di monitoraggio e valutazione, a cura di Giovanni Di Domenico, con Anna Bilotta e Maria Senatore Polisetti, Milano, Ledizioni, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Dinko Fabris http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Chiara Faggiolani, Come un Ministro per la cultura: Giulio Einaudi e le biblioteche nel sistema del libro, Firenze, Firenze university press, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Roberta Cesana http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Antonella Trombone, Teresa Motta: una bibliotecaria e “un anno di vicende memorabili”: con lettere inedite di Francesco Barberi e Manlio Rossi Doria (1943-1949), presentazione di Alberto Petrucciani, Rionero in Vulture, Caliceditori, 2020
Marco Menato - Simone Volpato, Immondi librai antiquari: Saba libraio, lettore e paziente di Umberto Levi, con una nota di Antonio Della Rocca, prefazione di Stefano Carrai, postfazione di Giovanni Biancardi, Biblion, Milano, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Vincenzo Fano http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Gigi Raimondo - Raffaele Carrieri, Il Sabato dei bibliofili: Milano 1936, a cura di Massimo Gatta, con scritti di Luca Montagner, Massimo Gatta, Antonio Castronuovo, Macerata, Biblohaus, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Francesca Nepori http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Lorenzo Pezzica, L’archivio liberato: guida teorico-pratica ai fondi storici del Novecento, Milano, Bibliografica, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Giorgia Di Marcantonio http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Mart, Guida all’Archivio del ‘900, Rovereto, Mart, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Francesca Ghersetti http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Annantonia Martorano, Classificare il potere: dal Prospetto delle materie del 1803 alla gestione documentale delle Prefetture, Torre del Lago, Civita editoriale, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Dimitri Brunetti http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Chiara Reatti, Tra aula e torchio: libri e scuola a Bologna da Napoleone all’età della Restaurazione, Bologna, CLUEB, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Giorgio Montecchi http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Anton Bruck - István Monok - Éva Edina Zvara, Bewahrte Geistigkeit und Kulturerbe von drei Nationen. Die Historische Bibliothek des Franziskanerklosters in Güssing, Budapest-Güssing, Franziskanerkloster Güssing, 2021
Copyright (c) 2021 Alfredo Serrai http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
István Monok - Edina Zvara, Esterhasiana Biblioteca. A gyűjtemény története és könyvanyagának rekonstrukciója, Budapest, Kossuth Kiadó, 2020
Benedetto Bacchini nell’Europa fra Sei e Settecento: libri, arti e scienze, a cura di Sonia Cavicchioli e Paolo Tinti, Modena, Panini, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Andrea Moroni http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Romilda Saggini - Paolo Ramagli, Libri antichi tra Savona e Albenga: inventari cinquecenteschi e catalogazione dei fondi di due diocesi liguri, Udine, Forum, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Valentina Sonzini http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
La peste e la stampa: Venezia nel XVI e XVII secolo, a cura di Sabrina Minuzzi, Venezia, Marsilio, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Maria Grazia Dalai http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Paolo Sachet, Publishing for the popes: the roman Curia and the use of printing (1527-1555), Leiden-Boston, 2020
Erasmo da Rotterdam, Prefazioni ai Vangeli, 1516-1522 , a cura di Silvana Seidel Menchi, Torino, Einaudi, 2021
Enrico Pio Ardolino, Storiografia delle biblioteche: genesi, stabilità e fratture di una tradizione di studi , Pesaro, Metauro, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Diego Baldi http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Francesca Longo Auricchio - Giovanni Indelli - Giuliana Leone - Gianluca Del Mastro, La Villa dei Papiri: una residenza antica e la sua biblioteca , Roma, Carocci, 2020
Copyright (c) 2021 Sara Marmai http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Establishing an «Orientalium linguarum Bibliotheca» in 17th-century Vienna: Sebastian Tengnagel and the trajectories of his manuscripts
Sebastian Tengnagel was the court librarian of the Imperial Library in Vienna from 1608 until his death in 1636. At the same time, he was an active member of the Republic of Arabic Letters, the circle of European scholars devoted to acquiring and disseminating knowledge of the Orient in early modern Europe. The Austrian National Library holds two groups of texts that can help us understand the complexity of his intellectual endeavours: the corpus of manuscript letters describing his work as an Orientalist and as a librarian, and the collection of Oriental manuscripts built up by Tengnagel. The two sources must be studied together, because each sheds light on the other. Only by interlinking them can we attempt to answer the crucial questions: how and why, in early 17th-century Vienna, did one become an Orientalist? What were the ‘tools of the trade’? This paper is a survey of this material, based upon the interdisciplinary project The Oriental Outpost of the Republic of Letters. Sebastian Tengnagel (d. 1636), the Imperial Library in Vienna, and Knowledge of the Orient carried out at the University of Vienna at the Department of Near East Studies and the Institute for Austrian Historical Research. Through specific case studies it shows how it is possible to reconstruct both the provenance and trajectories of certain books, and the stories of those who carried or studied them.
Copyright (c) 2021 Hülya Çelik - Chiara Petrolini http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Copyright (c) 2021 Luciano Canfora http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
The paper proposes, also as support of the National Library Service, the creation of a national repertoire that chronologically indexes the editorial production of the Italian authors, both handwritten and printed. The repertoire, entitled Bibliographic Dictionary of Italian Authors, would offer systematic evidence of the works of each Italian author, with a hypothetical regional structure.
A day for open science: ‘Viaggiatori in Toscana: personaggi e testimonianze’
The report reconstructs the lectures held on April 9 2021 during the open science day dedicated to Viaggiatori in Toscana: personaggi e testimonianze, organized by the ‘Festival di Pasqua’ of the Municipality of Montepulciano. The main theme was the ‘journey’ as social, formative and cultural education experience, and in particular the journey in Tuscany, place of choice for many Italian and foreign grandtourists. The speeches show the results of research that has seen the examination of library, archival, artistic and musicological sources and experiences that are so different from each other but which, in a harmonious and interconnected way, give back the image of a social and cultural phenomenon based on the exchange and contamination of ideas. All of this is done through a new form of divulgation, intended for a non-academic public and in line with the principles of the Third Mission of the universities.
Copyright (c) 2021 Elisabetta Angrisano - Biancamaria Brumana - Silvia Calamandrei - Cinzia Cardinali - Laura Giambastiani - Annantonia Martorano - Fiammetta Sabba http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
The contribution starts from the Mauro Guerrini book (Dalla catalogazione alla metadatazione) that he has the definition of metacatalogation was suggested, as a term containing a series of descriptive phenomena that should make it possible to identify and represent both archives and libraries. Between “cataloging and metadating” the descriptive elements resist. A bibliographic record of a paper catalog consists of a metadata set, just as the elements represented in an archival search tool can be called metadata. For real innovation, the archival inventory must be transformed into an information system, almost a search engine, characterized by specific strategies and filters. The inventory will be in the archive and no longer of the archive even if the contextual elements as a whole must never fail. Information constitutes the essential heritage of any society: the public, civil and political perception of archives and libraries has the task of putting themselves at the service of enlarged communities and processes on a very large range.
Copyright (c) 2021 Federico Valacchi http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Digital Library, or the evolution of the library: the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana and its new open access Digital Library dedicated to manuscripts
The Digital Library – used here to connote a general category – aims to innovate the range of services offered to the public by ‘analogue libraries’ to a varied group of users. These services cross the multifaceted cases of public reading libraries (and a large and generalist pool of users), of university libraries (and an equally large pool of users made up of students, undergraduates, faculty, and researchers), and also extend to the world of conservation libraries, which attract a specialized niche audience, very often of international origin. The digitization of precious, ancient, books – both manuscript and printed – represents a great and complex challenge from many points of view (conceptual, design, implementation, logistics, economic, personnel management, etc.), but also the most intuitive way we have now to expand the services offered to users in digital form. In the (recent) past, many digital library initiatives have been carried out in this sense by individual library institutions, as well as by individual private programs or government projects, with variable results in terms of objectives actually achieved, sustainable permanence online, and their ability to effectively counteract the so-called ‘digital obsolescence’ by updating the entire technological infrastructure of the project itself, as well as the individual digital contents, to guarantee their survival. Nowadays, web- based technologies have evolved, increased, and standardized to such an extent that a new approach is possible for digital libraries in terms of usability, visualization, and multi-platform replication of digital content.
Copyright (c) 2021 Fabio Cusimano http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
The cultural property as the soul of the world
Examination and discussion of the specific nature of the Cultural property, in relation to their misterious origin and their current mental function, both in connection with the development of a specific stage of civilization and the needs of the modern man.
The problem of digital legacy in the transmission of personal archives and libraries
The digital revolution that for at least a couple of decades has radically transformed every sector of society has not neglected to make profound changes also in the personal life of each one – which is becoming more and more ‘digital’ – and in the production and use of documents. Through personal computers, tablets and smartphones, we draw up documents, take notes and personal notes, write literary texts, develop studies and projects, take photographs, read books, interact on social networks, etc. In this way, many documents are created in digital format and many magazines and books are purchased and read in digital format as well. As a consequence, the digital part in personal archives is increasing more and more (and these are turning into “digital personal archives”); in the same way, personal libraries increasingly consist of digital books and magazines and therefore they are becoming ‘personal digital libraries’ too. In many cases digital material is stored on virtual spaces made available by cloud service providers and become accessible only to those who know (or have) the necessary credentials. But faced with this transformation, many people begin to ask themselves: what will happen to these personal digital fonds after the death of the producers or owners? Will the heirs be able to accommodate this legacy? To answer these questions, we need to face the problem of the transmission of the digital legacy, fully understanding the implications that derive from having entrusted personal fonds to systems often protected by inscrutable access mechanisms and trying to identify the solutions that could allow them to secure their future, avoiding falling into that ‘digital dark age’ that more than someone has already begun to foreshadow.
Copyright (c) 2021 Stefano Allegrezza http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
In 1946, the Edizioni dell’Orsa maggiore started to publish all the Radlyffe Hall’s books. The Author has been censored in England and her first literary work, The Well of Loneliness, became an incredible success (the first edition in England has been published in 1928 and in Italy in 1930 by the publisher Modernissima). In Italy, Hall is known thanks to two traslators (both are linked to Gian Dàuli and the publisher Corbaccio): Annie Lami and, above all, Mimi Oliva Lentati (the leader of Editrice dell’Orsa maggiore). The present article is about the little publisher Orsa and its brief, but very important for italian lesbian movement, history.