Les difficultes du marche du livre et la crise de la culture des bibliotheques fournissent aux bi... more Les difficultes du marche du livre et la crise de la culture des bibliotheques fournissent aux bibliotheques l'opportunite de reconsiderer et aussi de repenser leur position traditionnelle dans le monde du livre. Cette necessite oblige a l'examen critique de deux modeles sur lesquels s'est appuyee l'evolution des bibliotheques et qui ont tous deux des limites: celui de 1970 de la bibliotheque a multiples objectifs, associative, participative, sociale et celui de 1980 de bibliotheque commme service d'information, aseptique, manageriale. Un des problemes cles sur lequel s'articule le developpement de l'auteur, c'est la separation entre la promotion du livre et la promotion de la lecture. Les conditions et concepts pour une reunification de ces deux objectifs sont examinees
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2020
The Covid-19 epidemic period has irrevocably revealed the need for a general rethinking of behavi... more The Covid-19 epidemic period has irrevocably revealed the need for a general rethinking of behaviours, priority values, sociability, and resource allocation. Libraries and librarianship are also facing the urgency of a ‘paradigm shift’, due to the wear and tear of the ‘public library’ concept and model. This essay tries to deal with both librarianship and library crisis highlighting the accelerator role played by the pandemic. In particular, the tendency to wait and see, which in some cases has ‘infected’ the library field, is critically analysed. As if the difficult situation and global vulnerability justified a loss of essentiality of library services, a renunciation of activism, a retreat to ordinary administration. On the contrary, the ‘living-together-library’, outlined in the last part of the article, chooses the path of active and proactive intervention during the pandemic. This idea enters in the daily dimension with empathy and respect and works on the hypothesis of a politics of reading as ‘motor for change’.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2011
The article tries to describe the long "readers' century", i.e. the XXth Century. I... more The article tries to describe the long "readers' century", i.e. the XXth Century. It starts up with two "postcards", that prove to be two typical reading patterns. The first one shows a self-taught reader, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, standing next to a booth of second-hand books, among the crowd, enraptured by books. The second one portrays the reading in the background of the Escalonia's hedges and of the Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own. The history of reading in the XXth Century and the dangerous liaison between reading and modernity spring out from these patterns. Today, while we click on an eBook, perhaps this way of reading is shutting down; but another one, which is unrolled like a scroll and is read like a videogame, is just starting.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2006
The exhibition "Biblioteca en guerra" (Library during war), which took place at the Mad... more The exhibition "Biblioteca en guerra" (Library during war), which took place at the Madrid National Library from November 2005 until February of this year, was a work of outstanding merit thanks to the care of Blanca Calvo and Ramon Salaberria. The silence has been broken for the first time regarding a generation of librarians who were forced into flight, who were exiled or put to death - those librarians who were working for the Spanish Republic during the Civil War (1936-1939). Fortunately, a library history that reveals extraordinary modernity is coming to light. Despite innumerable difficulties in those years, Spanish libraries underwent great developments, from the point of view of both collections conservation (in war time) and of library promotion and marketing. Two opposing ways of conceiving culture and the library competed with and fought against one another: just as the Republic became involved in the building of new libraries and fostering a new concept of the library, nationalistic Spain went to great lengths to purge and censor library collections. However, for many years, even after Franco's death, these wartime damages remained voluntarily buried. Only today has the new Spain decided to look its past - including its library history " straight in the eye.
The article surveys the recent development of multimedia sections and services in public librarie... more The article surveys the recent development of multimedia sections and services in public libraries of Milan Province, with particular reference to that of Cologno Monzese. The arrangement which appears to prevail lies mid-way between the "Italian tradition" in terms of media and non-book services, and the trend pioneered in France. The development of multimedia services in the Milan hinterland owes much to the active contribution and support of Milan Provincial Council. Since 1997, it has promoted the Multimedia in libraries project, which fostered the development of four multimedia poles, one of which at the Cologno Monzese Public Library, where a new multimedia section opened in 1997. Although the indications and guidelines for designing multimedia services are still few and far between, the inevitable empiricism which often underpins the decisions regarding architecture, fittings and structural arrangements, allows one to identify some fundamental needs of spatial organisation: underlying flexibility of the stations, technological flexibility which allows the periodic substitution of broken or obsolete equipment without excessive effort and dismantling of the entire section, the section's location (well linked, but not too close to the borrowing area, and above all not immediately adjacent to the reading places); attention to the ergonomic and lighting aspects. The Cologno Monzese library has also presented Lombardy Regional Council with a project entitled Nessuno escluso (Nobody excluded) for the development of multimedia services aimed at the less technologically skilled sections of the public. This project's objective will be pursued not only through courses, workshops, promotions and other initiatives, but also by choosing the most friendly equipment and interfaces. As regards the problem of librarians' professional training, in the coming years they should prepare themselves for a transformation: if they wish to continue to collect books and promote reading, they should also be prepared to become discerning but also adventurous navigators of infospace. Few libraries have drawn up written regulations for the use of multimedia services: Cologno Monzese allowed a reasonable period of trial before enshrining the rules for use, and also the service standards to be guaranteed, in a Services Charter. In medium-size libraries, the multimedia section quickly tends to monopolise the staff's attention and energies. There is a very strong demand for assistance, even of a every elementary level, from the public and one of librarians' principal tasks is to increase the levels of general information literacy so as to concentrate on more skilled consulting and reference duties. In addition, there should be promotional campaigns aimed at those sections of society which are least familiar with and least use Internet. As the uses of the computer are varied and diversified, another fundamental problem of marketing the services concerns the limits and constraints of use. Each library should ensure that the needs it can "cover" is clearly circumscribed, in accordance with its proposed mission. What about fee policies? The author believes legitimate the policy, now broadly practised in many libraries, which sets charges (which almost always only cover costs) for some value-added or labour-intensive services. One of the most debated points concerning the new information technologies is that of the progressive abolition of filters and intermediaries between the user and the documentation. However, the author does not really see this trend for the moment: even in the future, when the actual availability of telematic reading on demand services may become attractive for some sections of the public, it will be counterbalanced by the increased need for digital-highway guides, advisors and intermediaries. The confirmed role of librarians and information brokers as intermediaries should, naturally, not lead to a suffocating excess of assistance to users. What holds for books also does so for multimedia resources and products. Interestingly, the garrulous society of the media which holds forth on disintermediation has been very solicitous in demanding librarians' intermediation to limit or prevent access to certain Internet sites to the underage and others. The introduction of multimedia services would be lacking and even counterproductive unless accompanied by a campaign of multimedia promotion and literacy, whose role should be similar to - and profoundly interwoven with - that of promoting reading in the library. This is the terrain of the decisive challenge: that which leads the library to face up to the cultural and anthropological revolution induced by the new technologies of communication.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, Jun 17, 2016
This paper analyses the theme of rights in libraries, especially of users and readers, from histo... more This paper analyses the theme of rights in libraries, especially of users and readers, from historical and cultural point of view. The centrality of users’ rights and the shift to the readers’ ones – a question sometimes seems a round trip – are based on mission and vision of library services and also on reading’s policies, a topic too often neglected. The transformation of library, both digital and social, affects the list of the rights and their importance. The last part of paper analyses rights and if and how they are changing in the time so called “Fourth revolution of the book”. This kind of analysis confirms itself the crucial role of readers, even if today they don’t seem the only users of library services. Obstinately readers have written their own history in the margins and in the folds of history of books and libraries, knowing that the game to play is right here.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2007
... Prestito a pagamento, atto secondo I nuovi scenari di una questione controversa ... Il second... more ... Prestito a pagamento, atto secondo I nuovi scenari di una questione controversa ... Il secondo atto si apre infatti con un cambio di scenario e con un'accelerazione dei mutamenti già in corso, e quindi con un po-tenziale allargamento dello scon-tro invece che con l'archiviazione ...
Les difficultes du marche du livre et la crise de la culture des bibliotheques fournissent aux bi... more Les difficultes du marche du livre et la crise de la culture des bibliotheques fournissent aux bibliotheques l'opportunite de reconsiderer et aussi de repenser leur position traditionnelle dans le monde du livre. Cette necessite oblige a l'examen critique de deux modeles sur lesquels s'est appuyee l'evolution des bibliotheques et qui ont tous deux des limites: celui de 1970 de la bibliotheque a multiples objectifs, associative, participative, sociale et celui de 1980 de bibliotheque commme service d'information, aseptique, manageriale. Un des problemes cles sur lequel s'articule le developpement de l'auteur, c'est la separation entre la promotion du livre et la promotion de la lecture. Les conditions et concepts pour une reunification de ces deux objectifs sont examinees
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2020
The Covid-19 epidemic period has irrevocably revealed the need for a general rethinking of behavi... more The Covid-19 epidemic period has irrevocably revealed the need for a general rethinking of behaviours, priority values, sociability, and resource allocation. Libraries and librarianship are also facing the urgency of a ‘paradigm shift’, due to the wear and tear of the ‘public library’ concept and model. This essay tries to deal with both librarianship and library crisis highlighting the accelerator role played by the pandemic. In particular, the tendency to wait and see, which in some cases has ‘infected’ the library field, is critically analysed. As if the difficult situation and global vulnerability justified a loss of essentiality of library services, a renunciation of activism, a retreat to ordinary administration. On the contrary, the ‘living-together-library’, outlined in the last part of the article, chooses the path of active and proactive intervention during the pandemic. This idea enters in the daily dimension with empathy and respect and works on the hypothesis of a politics of reading as ‘motor for change’.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2011
The article tries to describe the long "readers' century", i.e. the XXth Century. I... more The article tries to describe the long "readers' century", i.e. the XXth Century. It starts up with two "postcards", that prove to be two typical reading patterns. The first one shows a self-taught reader, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, standing next to a booth of second-hand books, among the crowd, enraptured by books. The second one portrays the reading in the background of the Escalonia's hedges and of the Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own. The history of reading in the XXth Century and the dangerous liaison between reading and modernity spring out from these patterns. Today, while we click on an eBook, perhaps this way of reading is shutting down; but another one, which is unrolled like a scroll and is read like a videogame, is just starting.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2006
The exhibition "Biblioteca en guerra" (Library during war), which took place at the Mad... more The exhibition "Biblioteca en guerra" (Library during war), which took place at the Madrid National Library from November 2005 until February of this year, was a work of outstanding merit thanks to the care of Blanca Calvo and Ramon Salaberria. The silence has been broken for the first time regarding a generation of librarians who were forced into flight, who were exiled or put to death - those librarians who were working for the Spanish Republic during the Civil War (1936-1939). Fortunately, a library history that reveals extraordinary modernity is coming to light. Despite innumerable difficulties in those years, Spanish libraries underwent great developments, from the point of view of both collections conservation (in war time) and of library promotion and marketing. Two opposing ways of conceiving culture and the library competed with and fought against one another: just as the Republic became involved in the building of new libraries and fostering a new concept of the library, nationalistic Spain went to great lengths to purge and censor library collections. However, for many years, even after Franco's death, these wartime damages remained voluntarily buried. Only today has the new Spain decided to look its past - including its library history " straight in the eye.
The article surveys the recent development of multimedia sections and services in public librarie... more The article surveys the recent development of multimedia sections and services in public libraries of Milan Province, with particular reference to that of Cologno Monzese. The arrangement which appears to prevail lies mid-way between the "Italian tradition" in terms of media and non-book services, and the trend pioneered in France. The development of multimedia services in the Milan hinterland owes much to the active contribution and support of Milan Provincial Council. Since 1997, it has promoted the Multimedia in libraries project, which fostered the development of four multimedia poles, one of which at the Cologno Monzese Public Library, where a new multimedia section opened in 1997. Although the indications and guidelines for designing multimedia services are still few and far between, the inevitable empiricism which often underpins the decisions regarding architecture, fittings and structural arrangements, allows one to identify some fundamental needs of spatial organisation: underlying flexibility of the stations, technological flexibility which allows the periodic substitution of broken or obsolete equipment without excessive effort and dismantling of the entire section, the section's location (well linked, but not too close to the borrowing area, and above all not immediately adjacent to the reading places); attention to the ergonomic and lighting aspects. The Cologno Monzese library has also presented Lombardy Regional Council with a project entitled Nessuno escluso (Nobody excluded) for the development of multimedia services aimed at the less technologically skilled sections of the public. This project's objective will be pursued not only through courses, workshops, promotions and other initiatives, but also by choosing the most friendly equipment and interfaces. As regards the problem of librarians' professional training, in the coming years they should prepare themselves for a transformation: if they wish to continue to collect books and promote reading, they should also be prepared to become discerning but also adventurous navigators of infospace. Few libraries have drawn up written regulations for the use of multimedia services: Cologno Monzese allowed a reasonable period of trial before enshrining the rules for use, and also the service standards to be guaranteed, in a Services Charter. In medium-size libraries, the multimedia section quickly tends to monopolise the staff's attention and energies. There is a very strong demand for assistance, even of a every elementary level, from the public and one of librarians' principal tasks is to increase the levels of general information literacy so as to concentrate on more skilled consulting and reference duties. In addition, there should be promotional campaigns aimed at those sections of society which are least familiar with and least use Internet. As the uses of the computer are varied and diversified, another fundamental problem of marketing the services concerns the limits and constraints of use. Each library should ensure that the needs it can "cover" is clearly circumscribed, in accordance with its proposed mission. What about fee policies? The author believes legitimate the policy, now broadly practised in many libraries, which sets charges (which almost always only cover costs) for some value-added or labour-intensive services. One of the most debated points concerning the new information technologies is that of the progressive abolition of filters and intermediaries between the user and the documentation. However, the author does not really see this trend for the moment: even in the future, when the actual availability of telematic reading on demand services may become attractive for some sections of the public, it will be counterbalanced by the increased need for digital-highway guides, advisors and intermediaries. The confirmed role of librarians and information brokers as intermediaries should, naturally, not lead to a suffocating excess of assistance to users. What holds for books also does so for multimedia resources and products. Interestingly, the garrulous society of the media which holds forth on disintermediation has been very solicitous in demanding librarians' intermediation to limit or prevent access to certain Internet sites to the underage and others. The introduction of multimedia services would be lacking and even counterproductive unless accompanied by a campaign of multimedia promotion and literacy, whose role should be similar to - and profoundly interwoven with - that of promoting reading in the library. This is the terrain of the decisive challenge: that which leads the library to face up to the cultural and anthropological revolution induced by the new technologies of communication.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, Jun 17, 2016
This paper analyses the theme of rights in libraries, especially of users and readers, from histo... more This paper analyses the theme of rights in libraries, especially of users and readers, from historical and cultural point of view. The centrality of users’ rights and the shift to the readers’ ones – a question sometimes seems a round trip – are based on mission and vision of library services and also on reading’s policies, a topic too often neglected. The transformation of library, both digital and social, affects the list of the rights and their importance. The last part of paper analyses rights and if and how they are changing in the time so called “Fourth revolution of the book”. This kind of analysis confirms itself the crucial role of readers, even if today they don’t seem the only users of library services. Obstinately readers have written their own history in the margins and in the folds of history of books and libraries, knowing that the game to play is right here.
Biblioteche oggi: Mensile di informazione aggiornamento dibattito, 2007
... Prestito a pagamento, atto secondo I nuovi scenari di una questione controversa ... Il second... more ... Prestito a pagamento, atto secondo I nuovi scenari di una questione controversa ... Il secondo atto si apre infatti con un cambio di scenario e con un'accelerazione dei mutamenti già in corso, e quindi con un po-tenziale allargamento dello scon-tro invece che con l'archiviazione ...
Fra l’ultimo libro letto e il primo nuovo da aprire si schiude il territorio segreto delle passio... more Fra l’ultimo libro letto e il primo nuovo da aprire si schiude il territorio segreto delle passioni di lettura, che fendono la notte e accendono il giorno. Fra primo e ultimo si apre il regno del penultimo, abitato dai sogni diurni, dalla tentazione del libro-cuscino, dalla sfida del libro-accetta. Il viaggio prende le mosse dalle passioni ‘tristi’ come la malinconia, la nostalgia, l’accidia, e fa rotta verso il desiderio di felicità e di amore che tutto muove. Cercando di far emergere i legami e gli intrecci tra le diverse passioni. La lettura viene letta a partire dalla stiva della nave, dove il cielo è un pavimento fessurato.
Ci sono due libri in questo libro. Uno naviga le acque limacciose della teoria in cerca di un porto di pace. L’altro raccoglie frammenti di esperienze e di sguardi leggenti e li annota a margine, in un basso continuo e autobibliografico che punteggia il testo principale. Li attraversa uno strano indice che cerca di classificare l’inclassificabile, inseguendo e tracciando ogni slittamento semantico e posturale delle passioni e delle situazioni di lettura. Tra le righe, la nevicata della lettura che tutto avvolge e imbianca.
Uploads
Papers by Luca Ferrieri
Ci sono due libri in questo libro. Uno naviga le acque limacciose della teoria in cerca di un porto di pace. L’altro raccoglie frammenti di esperienze e di sguardi leggenti e li annota a margine, in un basso continuo e autobibliografico che punteggia il testo principale. Li attraversa uno strano indice che cerca di classificare l’inclassificabile, inseguendo e tracciando ogni slittamento semantico e posturale delle passioni e delle situazioni di lettura. Tra le righe, la nevicata della lettura che tutto avvolge e imbianca.