Libraries evolve not through stages but through additions. Every time a new function is shaped, or an innovation takes place, the old is not abandoned, but something new is rather introduced. The current role of the library is hence given not only by the books’ presence and availability, but rather - and ever-increasingly - by the set of services the library offers to the citizens and to the overall community. The library shall therefore embrace its role as a locus where initiatives and dialogues are promoted, in the framework of a dynamic and permanent educational offer that also provides the users with highly innovative, broad and plural activities, able to respond to the needs for modern knowledge as well as for new social relations. This role seems to be more necessary than ever in a time as dramatic and lonely as the one we are living today.