The Central Tuscany Health Authority and the Municipality of Scandicci through your own Municipal Library, in collaboration with Auser Scandicci and La Melagrana Association, they inaugurated on Tuesday 25 June at the hospital San Giovanni di Dio in Torregalli the new hospital book loan service. Present were Claudia Sereni, newly elected Mayor of Scandicci, Simone Naldini, health director of San Giovanni di Dio, as well as the management staff of the Scandicci Library and the volunteers of the two associations.
The book lending and reading service aimed at patients within the Torregalli hospital it is an example of alliances between different subjects (Municipality, Health Authority and Third Sector Bodies) and responds to the right of all individuals to benefit, regardless of their place of residence or impediments deriving from physical and cultural conditions, of an information service and efficient documentation. The collaboration between the Library, Auser Scandicci and the La Melagrana Association aimed at the hospital loan service boasts almost twenty years of experience having begun in 2005 and over time has been increasingly appreciated by the patients and operators of the Torregalli hospital. It suffered an interruption in 2020 when, as soon as the new book lending area was inaugurated, clearly visible as it was adjacent to the hospital entrance and bar, the Covid19 pandemic spread.
“The service starts again today with a new look, even if the spirit that animates it is the same – says the Mayor Claudia Sereni – the project shares the idea that the promotion of reading and libraries are strategic actions useful for ensuring everyone’s right to reading, personal growth and, specifically, to guarantee the well-being of the patient by offering access to information so that exclusion from social life does not arise and by easing, as far as possible, their psychological pressure in the hospital context, making their stay more comfortable. Our gaze always remains aimed at including even the most vulnerable people in city policies.”
To implement the book lending and reading service in the hospital, the Library staff will have the task of providing the books intended for the book collection, of training the volunteers by transmitting to them the basic notions of librarianship, the discipline that deals with the organization and functioning of libraries and to involve them in the spirit of the reading promotion service that animates public libraries; the healthcare staff will introduce the volunteers to the healthcare reality.
AUSER Scandicci and Associazione La Melagrana were the winners of a notice of expression of interest aimed at identifying Third Sector Bodies with which the USL Toscana Centro Health Authority has signed a contractual agreement for the book loan and reading service for patients and book collection within the San Giovanni di Dio hospital – Florence published on 08/02/2023. Subsequently, the two associations presented a project requesting collaboration to the Scandicci Library, approved by an act of the municipal council, to have the professional technical support necessary to structure this intervention with professionalism.
