Insufficient funds at risk the online catalog of the Italian Libraries - The Press

Into The OPAC SBN provides access to 14 million shares with 64 million locations, approximately 50 million bibliographic research and more than 35 million page views

Likely Into the interruption due to lack of funds and human material, the online service of the National Catalogue of Italian Libraries (OPAC SBN). The network, comprising over 5,000 libraries, which allows more than 2 and a half million visitors a year, scholars or readers, to identify, via the web, in which library town which houses a rare book or document .

Into ‘A catalog – explain the responsible Gabriella Contardi and Silvia Simonelli – which gives you access to 14 million shares with 64 million locations, approximately 50 million bibliographic research and more than 35 million page views. ” It also allows you to book the consultation of the book or document, ask for a copy and in some cases the loan. An indispensable service for the search “whose interruption, because of the indiscriminate cuts – refers the complaint of the staff of the Central Institute for Cataloguing only (ICCU) – now seems inevitable.”

In to “Whoever carries on a study or research, and in general anyone, in Italy or abroad, is interested in getting into reading a document in the immense heritage of Italian libraries and explain Contardi Simonelli – know the National Library Service, and tested the usefulness of the national union catalog available via the Internet . ” But after years of constant cuts in the catalog only no longer has the necessary funding for its management. “We had to reduce the level of service offered – said the staff – and seek funding outside the budget Iccu. But now the end is inevitable. ”

Into “The cuts – continues the complaint – rocked even the staff. For years, retirements are not offset by new hires, but only temporarily, and to a minor extent by external collaborations. This breaks the passage of knowledge and experience that has always completed the training of younger colleagues: it is al l the wealth of technical and scientific knowledge related to the ancient material and manuscript cataloging and management of ‘information that is lost in the total indifference of those who have responsibility for government. ”

Into And to think that, as they explain the employees, the catalog only “is considered a realization forefront as a model of good practice internationally.” “Halt in the absence of maintenance resources, in the usual logic of indiscriminate cuts – end – is yet another offense of the right to education, research and cultural growth.”

Into ( ??Bend )