Acceso usuarios
Maria Barbone, María Cassella, Valentina Davighi, Elisabetta Tamburini
The paper deals with the theme of reading and writing clubs in Italian academic libraries. During the 2024 annual Conference at the Stelline in Milan a Working Group on these topics was launched to explore at what level these two Public Engagement activities were spread among Italian research libraries. The Working Group decided to prepare a survey addressed to Italian academic libraries to determine the level of uptake of reading and writing clubs in libraries. Results show that a few Italian libraries are carrying out reading clubs to reach out to external not academic users and fewer are experimenting with writing activities both with external and internal users. However, Public Engagement activities, in general, are increasing in academic and research libraries in Italy. The great majority of librarians are enthusiastic about Public Engagement activities as they allow libraries to increase their users and to differentiate publics. A few librarians also stress the challenges to carry on reading and writing clubs, events, presentations, exhibitions etc. to reach out to new publics. A cultural change is also necessary to gain university leadership's committment which is lacking at the moment.
