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We live in
Monza, a small town situated in the heart of
Brianza. Brianza is a geographic area localized in “Padana” plain (see the map).
In our area there are a lot of public libraries that they offer to citizens, from
younger to older, a lot of services and the possibility to use them freely. The main
objective of a library is to arise the habit of the reading starting at a very young age,
in order to stimulate the imagination and the creativity of children.
Other objectives that can’t pass unobserved,
are those to guarantee the development of information to all level and protect the
cultural differences. In Italy the library work according
the rules of the declaration of UNESCO of 1994 in which, along with the aims already listed, it establishes that the
public library must be available for all citizens without difference of age, race, sex,
religion, language, or social condition.
The principal services that our libraries offer are:
·
The lending
of all books, from novels to comics;
·
The lending
of CD-ROM;
·
The use of internet;
·
Studying area
in which we may study;
·
The lending
of films that in our opinion aren’t always so good;
·
The reading of newspaper, magazine;
Unfortunately,
only a few of interviewed knew these services that it could be very useful for personal
interest but also for school research!
Unluckily, in our libraries, there aren’t a
lot of amusements and the atmosphere is too
serious. For this reason, teenagers don’t often attend
libraries because they prefer listen to the music, what most of us would
like to do also inside the library without disturbing the others, or watch films or during
the break be able to go to the bar.
Thanks to a
project developed by some 
municipalities
of Brianza, the libraries of the district are more and more modernizing. Their services
are more accessible to all and above all to
the teenagers with the use of Internet. Now only with a click from our house we can order
to one of the staff library the book that we are interested in. This service is known only
by a part of students interviewed (see graphic). The project
“BrianzaBiblioteche” consists in a fusion of 27 municipalities libraries into a
only Interlibrary System(…) with the aim to improve the existent services and
increase the book heritage. Only half of
interviewed students know about this project so they can’t exploit all its
potentialities. A lot of guys don’t attend the library because of the dark atmosphere but because they prefer buying
the books instead of taking them to free lent, because, so they can read them quietly
without limit of time and because they want to keep it. More of half of the teens prefer to lend the books
because they are free. They think it is
cheaper and there is the possibility to read
a lot of books without spending money. In our opinion the guys don’t attend the
libraries because they aren’t regular readers and they go to the library just to buy
a book that will be given as a present to someone else!
The
European Union has started a procedure of violation against some Member States who have
violated the European Law 92/100 (Article 1-5) thank to it the authors and the publishers
have the rights to exclusive loan and they have the facility to authorize and to prohibit
the public loan of our works. Italy, Spain and the other interested countries are
mobilizing to take off this right which goes against fundamental principal of libraries
(law IFLA/UNESCO for the service development of public, 2001) about of their service
access to all without discrimination and gratuitously. We are opposing of the introduction of tickets that cut out of culture less rich persons and also would reduce the
interest for reading.
Article of: Claudio Knippel & Giorgio Villa
E-mail: knippel_villa@virgilio.it
