Thinking of a national library system: libraries in the Franceschini Committee's agenda

Abstract

The proceedings released by the Commissione Franceschini – Per la salvezza dei beni culturali in Italia (Franceschini Committee, Concerning the safety of Italian cultural heritage) – represent a milestone in the history of Italian libraries.
The Committee suggested a revision of the laws for the safeguarding of cultural heritage, introducing a new concept of cultural good: no longer just precious and valuable artwoks, but any evidence of a civilization’s material culture – including books – had to be considered a cultural good. This rather revolutionary concept produced a passionate debate among the members of the Group for Archives and Libraries, and for the first time since the end of World War II the need for a national library system became a crucial issue for the Country: the topic of libraries wasn’t a specialists’ topic anymore.