2' min read
2' min read
Three provinces of the Veneto region and, as of a few weeks ago, also the Municipality of Verona are participating in QuadriOpac, the library network that, as of October 2021, will systemise the stock of titles available in the facilities of the municipalities of the Veronese, Padovano and Vicentino regions in one of Italy's most widely read regions. With the entry of the 13 public libraries of the Scaligeri capital, the library capital available to the three territories is enriched and rises to approximately 5.7 million volumes.
In the province of Verona alone, where inter-library lending was born 20 years ago, there are approximately 200,000 subscribers and a hundred or so participating establishments. The network, supplemented by the new entry, thus brings together a total of 274 municipalities in the Veneto region and 297 libraries, enabling as of now a potential audience of over 2.5 million people to reserve and obtain books, free of charge, from any of the facilities included in QuadriOpac. The individual provincial systems are already able to generate, within their respective territories and thanks to the support of the member municipalities, inter-libraries totalling almost 700,000 volumes per year, in the name of accessibility, as Flavio Pasini, president of the Veronese province, recalled. With the Verona city's facilities joining the provincial library network and thus the shared supra-provincial system, the flow will increase. The councillor of the City of Verona with responsibility for libraries, Elisa La Paglia, emphasises the determination of Palazzo Barbieri to participate in the system, which has been rewarded. "We are entering the convention with 200,000 volumes of modern collections, and I believe this is an enrichment for our libraries, our users, the provincial system and the inter-provincial system," she says. "In the Veronese territory, 85 municipalities belong to the network, whose libraries are involved in lending and over the years have become places of reference and exchange, especially for young people, for culture. This autumn, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the provincial inter-lending system with an event dedicated to reading and books," recalls Veronica Atitsogbe, councillor of the Province of Verona with responsibility for the library system.
"This new membership reinforces the effectiveness of library cooperation, with the aim of offering increasingly better cultural and community services to citizens," concludes Vicenza Province Vice President Marco Guzzonato. The role that these cultural venues have played over the decades also changes over time. "The contemporary library is no longer just a lender of books, but also a provider of cultural services and support to users: in fact, there are numerous initiatives that each facility offers the population: conferences, evenings of study, presentations with authors," warns the councillor of the Province of Padua with responsibility for libraries, Paola Martin. "The QuadriOpac also allows you to have access to materials that may not be available in your area and shortens the time to receive them," she adds.
