Provincial libraries: 1991-2001: renewal or update?

Abstract

In 1991 I made a survey of the situation of the libraries of the chief towns of the Italian Centre-South (excluding Tuscany). I was seeking a common denominator that would allow me to identify and define a typology of public library of a chief town of a province while disregarding its administrative ownership (municipality, province, consortium, non-profit organization).Wishing now to resume the 1991 survey to historicize the evolution that has taken place in the sector of the libraries of the chief towns of the provinces – in the light also of the knowledge acquired in the four conventions on provincial libraries that were held between 1997 and the present time in Pescara – two facts should be emphasized. The first is that provincial libraries are not a phenomenon that is unique to the Centre-South, but are present throughout the Italian territory; the second is that from the end of the 1980s to 2001, eight provincial libraries were founded in a like number of chief towns of provinces where a public municipal library was already present, whereas no municipal library was established in the cities where there was already a provincial library. There is a provincial or consortium library in a third of the Italian provinces today. One of the reasons for this situation should be sought in the regional legislation in matters of libraries of local bodies or of local interest. In the regional administrations there does in fact prevail an increasing legislative tendency to transfer to the province the tasks of coordination in the field of libraries in general and that of the library systems in particular. Having said this, the comparison of the information between the survey of 1991 and that of the present time can be carried out on the basis of some internal indicators which, although involving users which more times than not cross the provincial borders, concern the personnel, the frequency, loans, computerization and opening times.