A private library: the Fondo Laura at the Biblioteca universitaria di Genova

Abstract

The paper focuses on the private Pietro Laura Fund, which belongs to the Biblioteca universitaria di Genova’s bibliographic and manuscripts collection since 1938, and presents the critical issues related to the management of this material during the years. This fund should be re-evaluated in its entirety, starting from its peculiar characteristics (notes of owners, annotations, handwritten additions) that make it valuable from the point of view of book collecting and of librarianship.

In order to remedy, albeit partially, the absence of specific investigations on the fund, it was decided to proceed with the presentation of the state of the art, suggesting at the same time some points for reflection on the initial donation and on the treatment hypotheses. The fund should be treated following the guidelines produced in 2018 by the AIB Commissione nazionale biblioteche speciali, archivi e biblioteche d’autore.