Community information and an Italian application: Informagiovani (Informing young people)

Abstract

Community information is a service that was developed in public libraries in Anglosaxon countries from as early as the 1970s. Its aim was to assist the public in finding its way among the various information agencies providing information useful for solving the local problems of daily life. In fact, starting from the 1960s Great Britain witnessed a substantial increase in structures offering assistance regarding consumer protection, the search for a house to rent, legal matters, etc. (Consumer Advice Centres, Housing Advice Centres, Legal Advice Centres). This had made it difficult to understand where to turn for solving a particular problem. A need was thus created for a service that would assist users to turn towards the structure most suitable for satisfying their requirements. Libraries were identified as the best place for starting this new service due to their widespread distribution all over the country and the experience of librarians in collecting and organizing information.
Community information services were launched from the end of the 1970s throughout the Anglosaxon countries. Their theoretical foundation derives from theIFLA/UNESCO Manifesto for public libraries and the IFLA/UNESCO development guidelines. These documents state that access to information is an essential condition for the participation of citizens in democratic life and that public libraries are the information centres that make every kind of knowledge and information readily available for their users. They further recommend the establishment of community information service.
Two very important experiences of this service have now been accomplished by the Detroit Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library. The organizational characteristics of a community information service vary significantly depending on the context in which it is set up. All paths that lead to cooperation with other structures that provide information and services to the citizens of the relevant territory should however be explored. The establishment of the service can also be assured by consortiums or non profit organizations and in this case it is even more important to adopt standard tables for the classifaction and filing of data. In this regard, the English project SEAMLESS is a good example of implementation of common work practices.
Italy has not witnessed the diffusion of community information in public libraries, except for the cases, unfortunately of short duration, of Scandicci and Settimo Torinese which began setting them up at the beginning of the 1980s. Our country does however have a very important experience: that of the Informagiovani (Informing young people) centres. These were propagated in various Italian cities starting from the beginning of the 1980s following the example of the Centre d'Information et de Documentation Jeunesse (CIDJ) inaugurated in Paris in 1969. They were set up at the initiative of local bodies which carried out various enterprises for young people during the 1970s. It was soon realized that a lack of updated and reliable information meant that young people missed many opportunities important for their development. It was therefore decided to set up centres for presenting a reliable picture of the possibilities available regarding employment, education, volunteer work, etc.. The Informagiovani centres were opened to this end. Basically they are born from the same information requirements that led to the creation of the community information services in the public libraries of the Anglosaxon countries, the only difference being that they are directed towards a particular age group of the population rather than its whole.