L’affordance della biblioteca

Abstract

Last December, The Italian National Institute of Statistics published some important data on cultural consumption in Italy. These include data on the use of library services (referred to the year 2015). From a quantitative point of view, the results that emerge are rather discouraging. They highlight a scenario whose fundamental trait is attributable to the small number of visitors to Italian libraries. In Italy only 15% of Italians declare that to have been in a library at least once in the 12 months prior to the interview. Going beyond the purely quantitative dimension and starting from the characteristics, motivations and actions of the 8 million people attending contemporary Italian libraries, the article describes the characteristics of three different ways of using the library.