Presentation of documents available and organization of collections in the European Library of Information and Culture

Abstract

The BEIC [ELIC] (European Library of Information and Culture) aims at the creation in the city of Milan of a large public library that will also be available for interdisciplinary research. The BEIC [ELIC] will be a library that is rooted in the reality of Lombardy and its library and documentation network. It will be alert to the global and digital dimension of the processes of creation and transfer of knowledge. It will be strongly user focussed and orientated to the quality of organization and service. Finally it will be able to provide a wide range of documents and accesses and to integrate traditional, multimedia, digital and network collections and services.
By dealing with the complex methodological problems deriving from the "dramatic" difficulty in organically composing conceptual taxonomies of learning and knowledge, bibliographic and catalographic selection/organization of documentary production and finally the physical arrangement of the documents, the presentation of the collections must be aimed at achieving these objectives. It will also be essential to identify the criteria that best represent the constitutive modalities, complexity and development of knowledge and of modern languages in terms of interdiciplinarity, "horizontality" and hypertextuality and that appear to be user-friendly, thus easing browsing.
With this in mind, the project foresees modular, informal, "mobile" solutions for arranging spaces and documents in the entrance section, a central open-shelf area arranged in independent multi-subject departments, a layer and transversal division of the reference material.
A clear distinction between grouping by themes, categories and service initiatives (especially in the entrance section) and grouping by subject (particularly in the departmental areas) should suitably respond to two different types of demand: one that is expressed in a rather informal manner, as curiosity or contingent interest, the other more structured and systematic.