Lunch break at the library: Borgo Venezia Library extends opening hours

Lunch break in the library, between books, reading and studying. Starting April 1st, the Borgo Venezia Municipal Library will be extending its opening hours, thus enhancing its service. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the spaces in Via Della Torre will also be open from 13:14.30 p.m. to 9:18.30 p.m., with continuous hours from XNUMX:XNUMX a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m. The library opening hours remain unchanged other days of the week: Monday from 14.30pm to 18.30pm, Thursday and Friday from 9am to 13pm and from 14.30pm to 18.30pm, Saturday from 9am to 13pm. A response to the significant growth of users registered at Mondadori as in other municipal libraries, a young audience, made up of students who choose the library rooms to carry out research and homework assigned at school and to study in welcoming and silent environments.

2024 saw 3525 new members join the civic library circuit, an increase of 23.7 percent of active users compared to the data as of December 31, 2023). Loans also increased accordingly: in 2024 they were almost 230 thousand, equal to 17,3 percent more than the previous year. A more than positive balance for the Department of Libraries, also the result of the efforts made in this direction by the Administration to further improve the service of the public libraries which, in addition to the Civic Library in Via Cappello, have another 12 points distributed in the eight districts. Exhibitions, meetings, events, film festivals, book presentations, conventions and conferences, reading group activities, courses, initiatives with schools, markets: almost a thousand activities carried out in 2024, 30 percent more than in 2023.

A crescendo of proposals started in the first months of the Tommasi Administration with the signing of the 'Verona Pact for Reading', a memorandum of understanding signed between the Municipality of Verona and numerous public and private entities, representing associations, networks and systems of the Veronese book and reading supply chain, which subsequently allowed the achievement of the first recognition of 'City that reads' for the two-year period 2022-2023, and which has been renewed until 2026. Since then ideas and initiatives have never stopped, in a a succession of new projects that have continued to strengthen the promotion of reading in the city and the services provided by civic libraries in recent years.

Since 2022, in fact, a major network effort has been carried out with local bookshops, through which the libraries have formed an alliance to propose events. The Municipality of Verona, through the Civic Libraries, has also supported the city's bookshops by reserving resources for the purchase of books. A sharing of intent that has allowed to raise the quality of the books offered by the city's library heritage. Again, through the 'Free Spaces' project Libraries have proposed themselves to become increasingly open spaces for cultural contamination, true institutional and social strongholds in the heart of neighborhoods. In recent years, the involvement of schools of all levels has also been expanded., both by offering visits and graduated thematic itineraries, and by implementing PCTO projects.

In November 2024, a collaboration agreement was also signed for the establishment of “Venetian library networks in a system”, through which the libraries of Verona have lent around one hundred books and audiovisual materials, while the citizens of Verona have requested 180 in other territories. A project aimed at cooperation between the relevant library networks that use homogeneous IT platforms with the goal of providing citizens with ever-improving services and with the most effective and synergic use of available documentary and library resources, without additional costs for the participating public administrations. Therefore a service that benefits from the expansion of the offer to the catalogues of other provinces and therefore creates further opportunities, first and foremost for the citizens of Verona.

The interlibrary loan service has been active since last fall and is registering strong appreciation, both from users of city libraries. The new inter-lending network has systematized 274 municipalities and 297 libraries, with a potential audience of over 2,5 million people and a collection of approximately 5,7 million volumes. In the first two months of activation, 82 outgoing loans were made from the Civic Library and the Audiovisual Center and 17 from neighborhood libraries to the libraries of the Network. Incoming loans, on the other hand, were 73 intended for users of the Civic Library and the Audiovisual Center and 109 requested by users of neighborhood libraries.

"I thank all the offices for the great work- he claims Councillor for Libraries Elisa La Paglia-. And the districts that organize book fairs in more and more neighborhoods of the city. The process for the return of books from Matera has also been started”.