SALA BORSA LI­BRARY: MULTI-HIS­TORY, MULTI-KNOW­LEDGE AND MULTI-MEDIA

The Sala Borsa li­brary of­fers a place for cul­ture in­side the castle-like Pa­lazzo d’Ac­cursio, the his­toric seat of the Mu­ni­ci­pa­lity and the heart of Bo­lo­gnese life. The area has a con­si­de­rable number of non-re­li­gious buil­dings of ar­chi­tec­tural in­te­rest. In 1870 the pa­lazzo was de­si­gned to be­come the new Stock Ex­change (sala borsa). The de­sign re­sem­bles the Paris stock ex­change, with its abun­dance of iron­work. It was built by the firm of Al­fredo Cottrau, a Nea­po­litan of French origin, and Paolo Boubée, head of the Naples Ita­lian me­tal­wor­kers in­dustry. The style of the pa­vi­lion be­longs to the new trend in ar­chi­tec­tural in­fra­struc­ture in vogue at the time and well re­pre­sented by the Um­berto I Gal­lery in Naples and the Corso Vit­torio Ema­nuele II Gal­lery in Milan.

THE EX­PE­RI­ENCE

Sala Borsa is a mo­dern pu­blic li­brary. It pro­vides easy ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion and do­cu­ments for all dif­fe­rent ages, cul­tural le­vels and na­tio­na­li­ties. Do­cu­men­ta­tion of all kinds is ra­pidly up­dated and there is a strong IT and mul­ti­me­dial em­phasis. The li­brary is de­si­gned to pri­vi­lege mo­dern li­ving and our mul­ti­cul­tural and mul­ti­me­dial li­festyles. The overall sur­face of the li­brary is 4,830 sq me­tres, of which 3,900 are de­di­cated to the pu­blic and di­vided into dif­fe­rent sec­tions: Adults, Children, Pe­ri­odi­cals, Au­dio­vi­sual/Mul­ti­media, Events Area shared with pri­vate part­ners. There is sea­ting for 390 rea­ders. The li­brary holds 153,000 books, 3,000 pe­ri­odi­cals, 10,000 vi­deos, 14,000 music CDs, 1,800 CD-rom and audio books, 80 da­tabanks.

TECH­NO­LOGY

In­te­grated cab­ling and two dis­tinct net­works pro­vide In­ternet ac­cess, opac (on­line pu­blic ac­cess ca­ta­logue), CD-rom Li­brary, da­ta­base, ca­ta­lo­guing, len­ding, purchases and sta­ti­stics spe­ci­fi­cally for the li­brary, in­tranet for in­ternal admin and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.The len­ding area is in the Scu­derie, where books are ar­ranged by sub­ject on the open shelf, music CDs can be lis­tened to in com­for­table arm­chairs and VHS and DVDs bor­rowed. In the centre of the room are sofas and arm­chairs, zones for con­sul­ting ca­ta­lo­gues and two au­to­matic loan ma­chines. Pu­bli­ca­tions prior to 1990 are on the lower floor and there are ta­bles for stu­dents.Most of the In­ternet ac­cess spots are in the con­sul­ting room (Col­la­ma­rini grande). Au­t­ho­ri­sa­tion and ti­ming func­tion au­to­ma­ti­cally.