In September 2021, anti-seismic and fire prevention interventions began in Verona for Palazzo Nervi, home of the Civic Library. The work began with the moving of hundreds of thousands of books, manuscripts and correspondence preserved in the archives and their consequent departure towards the other end of Italy. A true heritage of the city, of which there is no news after three years. In recent months we have explored the feelings of library staff and a rather gloomy picture has emerged.
The question had already been posed at the time by the PD and Traguardi, at the time in opposition to the Sboarina council who had organized and managed the event: given that the council has changed for two years now, we return to ask for updates to Elisa La PagliaCouncilor for educational and school policies, Libraries, School buildings, Health and local services.
Councilor La Paglia, could you update us on the fate of the moved books?
«They are still in Matera, but they are not hostages. The company that has them in custody, indeed, would be happy to start the transfer of book material and storage, but there are specific bureaucratic issues to resolve.»
Which?
«The entire operation, which began in 2021, took place without the necessary involvement of the Superintendence which instead had the right to intervene on multiple aspects of the matter. As a Department, in these two years, we have worked to restore the correct process of the procedures and therefore, in this case, the return of the materials must take place in the designated premises only after the approval of the Superintendence, which is evaluating their suitability. Therefore, the current situation is that we are in contact for the evaluation of the technical report of the work done and the methods of return.»
So, after the green light, will the material be able to leave?
«Yes, with the addition of a few months if the purchase of the new shelving is also confirmed.»
So there are no problems of economic resources for the shelves?
«As mentioned, if the Superintendency deems what has been done adequate, the resources for the shelves have already been foreseen. If there are other adaptation works we will have to quantify them and possibly plan other resources.»
Another point that emerged was that, even if they returned, there would be neither sufficient space nor human resources to relocate them. Do you understand?
«We have also worked to resolve these problems. The first is linked to the space, which was reduced by about a fifth after the works: the restoration of the archives would take place after the physiological waste that had not been carried out initially, which, together with the specifications of the new shelving, will allow us to make return everything to our headquarters; work, that on waste, which already involves all 13 libraries of the Municipality. For the second, i.e. the human resources available, it must be kept in mind that we have restructured what was the internal cataloging office, making it more efficient: we have recovered strength internally at the Municipality, working on internal mobility and looking for trained and qualified personnel with skills in archival; to these forces must also be added the girls and boys who have just arrived with the civil service.»
By the way, relationships with internal staff, like last year, are often complicated. So much so that I even heard that some employees were dismissed because they dared to “try to see clearly” in the Matera issue.
“Absolutely not. The move is motivated only by the need to intercept qualified profiles within the Municipality’s resources. But let’s go by points. We are working to transfer qualified and stable staff to the library from other municipal sectors. Furthermore, the management has worked to resolve an age-old issue requested by employees which does not change the services offered to users: the mixing of functions between municipal employees and essential services offered by cooperatives. This new management is bearing fruit, with the result that we have recovered all the legal deposit that was in arrears for years, we are finally starting to catalog the funds that have remained pending, such as, for example, the Bertani fund; furthermore, with the “Free spaces” tender we keep three libraries open for 40 hours, in addition to the Civica, and five are also open on Saturday mornings.»
It seems that, one year after our last interview, it has not yet been decided whether or not to open a dispute with the company that handled the transfer. Had no damage been detected to the stored structures?
«In fact, at the moment no dispute has been opened with the company responsible for looking after the books and shelves. In fact, regarding the state of their degradation, the expert opinion established that the triggering of the rust depended on the change in climatic conditions and not on an actual deficiency in the housing.»
“The library must return to being a center of culture. To do this, however, we must rethink the organization of cultural proposals,” she told me a year ago. Where are we at?
«We are working continuously on this point and the results are starting to arrive. In Borgo Trieste, for example, loans increased by 20% and the district also made itself available for evening openings for cultural activities, increasingly recognized as the cultural hub of the neighborhood. This is the objective that applies to the decentralized ones as well as to the Civic one, so much so that almost 8000 students were welcomed with a whole series of thematic routes and guided tours. We have also restored the possibility of donating texts, an activity that had languished for some time. Even an activity like the market has managed to have an excellent response, managing to recover funds of 5,000 euros which, together with the other 75,000 that the Municipality provides, constitutes a fund to purchase new books of a certain importance.»
But when will they return?
«There are obligatory steps that prevent us from making predictions. But the process for recovering this heritage is by no means at a standstill.”
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