Introduction to the Library of the Italian Cultural Institute

While taking language courses at the ItalCultura, I was thrilled to learn that the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Chicago has a large Italian-language library on-site with thousands of items! But, unfortunately, it was closed to the public. The library had been in disuse for at least 10 years, and had effectively stopped offering circulation privledges to members. Yet, the new term Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago had initiated a special project when he arrived in 2020 with a goal to refresh and reopen the library. I was in-between jobs at the time, and offered to volunteer on the library project for a few hours a week. After a few weeks, I was hired onto the project as the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian!

The basic profile of the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago's special-collection library and its users is similar to what I had worked with previously at Alliance Francaise of Chicago's library. Both libraries use the international Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. Both collections are centered on language and culture—with a very strong emphases in visual and performing arts, literature, geography, and history. Both are open to the public for viewing, yet limit borrowing privileges to members. Both have collections comprising mostly of non-English language items, with some parallel-text items (used as easy readers for students), and only a few (of the most renown) texts available in English translation. Both are have similar core users—for IIC it is the staff of the Italian Consulate (whose offices are in the same building) and their families, staff of the on-site Italian Cultural Institute (who often refer to the collection for event programming), and teachers and adult students of the on-site ItalCultura language school. And, both libraries are frequently used as a waiting room, where guests and visitors are invited to casually browse the collection. The largest differences between the two libraries is funding, scale, and age. AFC's library is over 100 years old, has a permanent librarian on staff to assist users, and is owned by the local private non-profit organization. IIC's library was only established (formally) a few decades ago, does not have a permanent librarian (instead it is overseen by IIC's Director and the Associate Director of Programs and Communication), and is owned by the Italian Ministery of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Also, IIC's library is about 25% of AFC's library's size (with about 4,000 items compared to 18,000).

I am very interested in the rich collection of contemporary Italian-language books and media at IIC's library collection because as a student of Italian language and culture, I found that there are very few opportunities in Chicago to interact and immerse oneself in Italian language and culture outside of class, or to have opportunities to learn about actual Italian culture that go beyond basic tourism. There is no other collection like that of IIC's anywhere else in the city. While there are Italian-language degree programs at local universities, few of these maintain collections that aspire to offer the latest publications in contemporary Italian literature and arts, and few allow outside users. Local book stores in Chicago do not carry new Italian-language books because unlike Spanish, French, or German, there is not a large enough community in Chicago to support such a for-profit market. There's only one other equivalent Italian-language library in the Chicago area, the community-centered, volunteer-based Florence Bartolomei Roselli Library at Casa Italia in Stone Park (IL) which maintains a collection of 3,000 (mostly vintage) books, and an archive collection that specializes in family-research resources documenting Italian-American immigration to Chicago in the late-19th and early-20th century.

In the year before I arrived at Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago's library, IIC's Director had undertaken a major collections-management project. Hundreds of items were deaccessioned that were determined to have very low use-value or circulation potential, which freed up valuable shelf space. Then about 500 new acquisitions were purchased to create a new section for children, refresh the DVDs, create a comprehensive Italian comic books (fumetti) section, and update the literature sections with recent Premio Strega award-winning works.

Survey

My initial visits with the collection revealed that this project was going to be extremely arduous, both intellectually and physically. But this level of enigma and disarray is not uncommon for a large library collection that has no permanent librarian on salary. When the library was active in the past, it seemed that its routine maintanence and operations was supported by untrained volunteers; there was little consistency in the way that things had been done throughout the collection.

What eased the horror was that it was very clear to me that this was an extremely special library. Not only had the Director curated a very thoughtful collection that demonstrated the profound wealth of Italian literature and culture, historically as well as currently, but the library had an incredible collection of valuable editions produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, as well as artist's editions and rare books, which are a treat for me to work with. Additionally, I learned that many of the books were personally signed by the authors, who had previously visited this office.

The library reading rooms before re-opening. Photograph from IIC website.

The shelf organization was basically inoperable. There seemed to be no consistent systems in use anywhere throughout the library. Individual or groups of shelves broke DDS order to display selections that were organized independently of the collection as a whole. (Which is fine for a personal library but makes public libraries impossible for visitors to use.) Someone, lacking context, had abbreviated all theater arts by interfiling the Literature:Drama section (843) with the Performing-arts section (791.2). Artist monographs in the 700 section were inconsistently organized by either author, publisher, or subject—which resulted in the collection of books on the Michelangelo's paintings, for example, were scattered throughout the section rather than all in one location side-by-side. Books on Leonardo Da Vinci were also dispursed within the 700s, yet they also had their own shelf in the 620s where they formed a very precise (and lonesome) 14th-century scientific-invention section. Oversized books were put just where ever they could fit, sometimes sticking out into narrow walkways and were at risk of getting damaged; they were not designated as oversized in the catalog, and were effectively lost. In some instances, when we had multiple copies of the same volume, the copies were cleverly each assigned different call numbers and dispersed in multiple sections (like pop-up ads begging to be noticed no matter where you are).

It seemed likely that the "display shelf" method of shelving order may have been used as a temporary fix for problems created by the call numbers that they had been assigned. Often when untrained library assistants download records from a shared catalog, the assistants do not know how to correct or edit the records and call numbers are usually just accepted as-is rather than being adjusted for the local collection. Many, many items in IIC's library seemed unintentionally assigned numbers that placed them in sections that were absolutly illogical. Many were assigned call numbers that were excessively precise—which resulted in a long ribbon that unfurled the entire length of the spine, even if it was the only book in that whole category and could have easily been abridged! We also had the opposite issue (which I recount with a dull pain in my gut): some very well-intentioned person had decided the new call numbers would be easier to deal with if they were limited to just 3 digits. So, for example, since Italian Literature:Fiction starts with 853, we now had over a thousand items that all shared the same call number and shelf location. Additionally, I learned that many of the records in the catalog had been altered by someone who didn't know how ISBD standards are formed, much punctuation had been erroneously "cleaned out" of records. Some of these details would be triaged due to project-schedule limitations.

This would all need to be intellectually sorted out. We needed to regain intellectual and physical control. Everything needed new call numbers and labels. A lot of the books would need to be physically moved, and a lot of the physical shelving units would need to be readjusted. We wanted the library to be inviting and attractive, but also intuitive, to future users.

BiblioWin

Intellectually, the catalog had recently been migrated to a new software program, which no one on site knew how to use yet. The ID numbers that ICC was using to identify specific items (and hand-written into the front page of each book) had been automatically re-assigned during the catalog migration—which rendered their previous identification system useless. Hundreds of items were lost and deaccessioned items were still showing up on the catalog as available and on-the-shelf (and maybe they were, but which shelf and where?!?). It was not yet possible to do an inventory. Meanwhile, hundreds of new items were waiting to be added to the catalog.

The software was BIBLIOWin 5.0, a cloud-based SAAS (software-as-a-service) program released in 2024 by CG Soluzioni Informatiche, in Italy. It is used by all of the Italian Consulate libraries across the world. Its bibliographic schema is based on RDA (Resource Description and Access) and ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description) cataloging standards. It offers connection to consortium copy-cataloging services through the SBN (il Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale), the Italian union-catalog database. IIC's catalog is linked directly to IIC's online public access catalog (OPAC) for our library users to consult.

Over the first week, I orientated myself to BiblioWin and reviewed its user manual (memorizing the italian vocabulary for all of BiblioWin's key functions, elements, and options).

Screenshots of the Expression and Item records for Carlo Levi's book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli in BiblioWin

Screenshot of the ISBD record for Carlo Levi's book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli in BiblioWin

Screenshot of the Expression record for Francesco Rosi's film adaptation of Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, based on Carlo Levi's book, in BiblioWin

Screenshot of the Expression record on IIC library's online public access catalog (OPAC)

Creating a Local DDC Schema and Establishing Rules

Nearly all of the call numbers and labels had to be rethought and done. My initial survey had shown me that we clearly needed to develop a local schema. I had seen what sorts of problems could be predicted for the future if we continued with the former schema. Within my schema, I resolved to only build out the call numbers as much as they needed to be useful for our local collection. My previous coursework in Metatadata Theory and Practice at UI-UC provided me with valuable experience building custom schemas from scratch. This project would be easier than any of that coursework, because I was simply customizing a previously existing schema rooted in DDC. Applying DDC was just another schema standard (which I had used at AFC and ARTIC previously). Most of the answers had been designed through DDS's tables already, we just had to make decisions and be consistant.

I was able to adapt myself from MARC21 cataloging to RDA/ISBD standards, from OCLC to SBN, from LC to Dewey, and from LC Subject Headings to (...I decided upon) Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze's Thesaurus, because my Cataloging and Metadata courses at UI-UC were taught at a high-level. Beneficially, we were trained in applying the theory of cataloging across situations and standards—because these things change!

Once I understood what standards this project would be based in, it was clear which elements would be involved. MARC21 is based on ISBD, and I had been trained in RDA, so I was already prepared and ready to migrate my knowledge to the different standards. SBN was based on the same standards of operation that OCLC is, and accessing the shared catalog for copy-cataloging (with all of its advantages and disadvantages) was intuitive.

Bibliografia Nazionale Italiana, schema di classificazione (1982!) ♥

To my pleasure, I learned that perhaps not all call numbers in IIC's library were copy-cataloged historically. The library still had a generalized Dewey Decimal Classification schedule from a 1982 edition guidebook... which was very out of date and too general for use in this special-collections library...but a beautiful object anyhow!

Karen Snow, A Practical Guide to Dewey Decimal Classification (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024)
Karen Snow works at Chicago's Dominican University, and had been a guest in my cataloging course at UI-UC; Her guidebooks on cataloging are very knowledgable and direct.

Although I had been trained at UI-UC to use WebDewey, it didn't make sense for IIC to take out a subscription to the resource, and I was confident that I didn't really need the tool for this project. I downloaded all of the DDC Schedules and Tables from OCLC, acquired Karen Snow's Dewey Decimal resource, sat down with the Bibliografia Nazionale Italiana schema and studied my first shelf of books. For the first few weeks of the project I simply had homework each night. I reviewed the data dictionaries, manuals, and guidebooks for instructions on puctuation, rules, and interface orientations. As I adapted myself to the software, I quickly got used to cataloging within BiblioWin's Italian-language interface!

As I sorted through physical items and judged which items actually belonged in each section, I built out the new schema. I continously reviewed all of the pertinent DDC Tables as I worked to assure that I didn't miss any better solutions already resolved elsewhere, and documented major changes and decisions as user instructions.

A sample of my custom schema for Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago's collection

When I was hired I had been told that I would not only have to learn the catalog and the inventory, but the culture behind the collection. This, I considered to be one of the nonmonetary benefits of this incredibly arduous project.

Some of the sections were a real pleasure to work through. One of my favorite sections became the 641.8 Ricette section, where volumes were tabled-out (oops, a pun!) by Italian region to highlight different culinary traditions. I also adored the new 741.5 Fumetti section, which has a rich array of beautifully printed limited-edition books by really wonderful artists. I decided to join together all of the special-edition artists' books within 745.6 (traditionally used for Illuminated books), which also became a favorite section. And in the literature section, I was able to gain a familiarity with the works of some of the best writers in the Italian language. (I had previously read Alessandro Baricco, Italo Calvino, Carlo Collodi, Umberto Eco, Elena Ferrante, Carlo Levi, and Leonardo Sciascia in translation, but had not previously encountered writers such as Niccolò Ammaniti, Stefano Benni, Dino Buzzati, Andrea Camilleri, Gianrico Carofiglio, Maurizio de Giovanni, Erri De Luca, Dario Fo, Luigi Malerba, Antonio Manzini, Dacia Maraini, Alberto Moravia, Cesare Pavese, Pier Maria Rossi di San Secondo, and Antonio Tabucchi. Yet most of my "finds" in the literature section had to be mentally placed on my reading list for later, because my fluency in DDC and RDA is still much more advanced than my current Italian reading skills...Currently I read novels very slowly and prefer to have my own copy that I can notate as I work through my understandings; the IIC library is one that I am aspiring to use in the future!) It was also exciting to learn the catalogs of leading Italian publishers (such as Mondadori, Fandango, Feltrinelli, and Giulio Einaudi Editore to name a few). As I worked through the DVDs, I was also able to learn all of the important names in Italian filmmaking. I regularly watched these DVDs in the evenings after work (in Italian with Italian subtitles) and discovered a love for the Inspector Montalbano tv series and the filmmaker Ermanno Olmi).

Organizing, Cataloging, and Classifying the Collection

Now I would have to take on assigning call numbers, determining shelf order, and cataloging.

Undoing knots in the catalog

While I was building the schema, I made instructional notes for IIC Library's specific use, based on many conversations with IIC's Director. For example, the Director requested that art photography books would go into 770—unless they were prodominently featured travel photography and documented specific regions in Italy, those would go in 914.5 under specific geographic regional section next to travel-guide books (thereby better facilitating users who were studying or making travel plans to visit particular regions). Since most all of the collection was attributed to Italian art and culture, in many instances throughout the library we could simply omit the repetitive addition of the "5" locality designator in the call numbers.

The 325 Diaspora, emigrazione, e immigrazione section was very nuanced within IIC's collection. There are a large quantity of books about the history of migrations from Italy throughout the world, specifically to the USA, and especially to Chicago, including personal memoirs. There are also many books about people from the USA (and more generally the world) migrating to Italy, as well as migrations internally within Italy. The detail that we were able to achieve with the local DDC schema was very helpful to direct users to the books that they want and need, since the library will be used by Italian citizens coming to the USA, and for US citizens planning to move to Italy.

I was instructed not to use cutters in the call numbers, because I was told that they may be difficult for untrained library aids to apply in the future. As a compromise, I made a second line for the first three letters of the author's last name and added as many letters as necessary to clarify shelf order. While other librarians may disagree, based on the particularities of the collections and users they serve, I strongly believe in the importance of having a unique call number to identify each book. Since our items do not have barcodes or unique ID number attached to the physical items, to clarify shelf order for library's assistants, and make it immediately clear to users if an item is where the catalog says that it is should to be. Additionally, unique call numbers function as helpful tools to identify the book in the catalog, and for conducting inventory.

Another interesting decision for me was how to define the shelf order of the parallel texts and English-language books. Previously, all of the English-language books had been segregated from the Italian-language books, to create a special (frequently ignored) section at the entrance of the second room. I felt strongly that this section should be broken up, and that these entry shelves would be best used for to display and provide quick access to the DVDs. After working at AFC's library for so long, I knew that these English translations of Italian classics, such as Alessandro Baricco's Seta [Silk] were very helpful for students to study side by side. This learning method provides the pleasure of reading well-crafted literature, and help students build confidence to strain their vocabulary with a safe crutch to lean on nearby in case one needs help or reminders. Indeed, I noticed that at some point someone had already marked nearly all of the English texts with blue dot-stickers and the parallel texts with yellow dot stickers! (I later learned that this was done one of the language instructors, Alessia!) After consulting with other cataloging professionals at similiar foreign-language librarians (on a cataloging list-serv), and discussing the issue with the Director, we implimented an integrated system with the blue/yellow stickers. I assured that all English and parallel texts were stickered consistently, and that the catalogue records matched and notated the language details.

Shelf order, graphic created by the Library of Congress

I also used this schedule to help me create shelf-order rules for editions (for authors such as Italo Calvino, IIC has multiple editions) or multiple copies. The Director decided that we would not follow this guide for criticisms of books and authors, due to his anticipations of users' needs. Instead we would use local privledges to alter the DDC and create a seperate criticism section (mostly scholarship on Dante Alighieri, the “Father of the Italian Language”) at the beginning of the Literature schedule.

Special "break-out" sections were created for the bookshelves in the Director's office (where non-circulating art volumes published by Franco Maria Ricci were stored), the DVDs, and the children's section.

For the DVDs, the Director decided (based on users' needs) to organized by the filmmaker's last name rather than title, which (as a film scholar) I found very exciting! Not only does this system parallel the literature section and match users' needs (such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Matteo Garrone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini, and Paolo Sorrentino), but it also encourages scholarship and study of individual directors. We added the yellow and blue dots to designate language and subtitle options, as well as red "heart" dots to mark which DVDs would play on standard DVD players manufactured for the US (most of the releases from Italian distributors use PAL and region 2 standards rather than NTSC region 1). All of these technical notes were also added to the catalog records, to be viewable on the OPAC.

For the childrens' section, we established a multi-level system and formed sections based on the readers' age group. Attributes were added to the catalog records, so that users could consult the age group through the OPAC. Based on my work shelving children's books at AFC I knew that this section can be laborious to reshelf after items circulate, because the books' spine widths are commonly very thin and the call number label often has to go on the front cover. To make re-shelving easier for future staff, I insisted that we re-inforce their shelving locations not just in the call number prefix, but also with colored dot-stickers—this way whoever is shelving can narrow can immediately relocate volumnes to 1 or 2 possible shelves.

We also created an Oversized book section, away from foot-traffic, where these items would be more easily found and safely stored.

As I worked throughout the library, I standardized the shelving alignments as much as possible for visual clarity. I readjusted the shelving units and moved books up and down step-stools and between the two reading rooms. I also left extra empty space above the top shelves, and made the heighest shelf within arm's height, so that the library may be more physically accessibe to users than before. The new shelving arrangement worked out beautifully. The larger DDC 100-700s sections fit perfectly within the first reading room, where a large table offers visitors a nice place to browse the large artist monographs. The smaller 800-900s sections were placed in the second reading room where a smaller table stands. In this econd room, we replaced the obsolete English break-out section with a large and roomy DVD section, and installed the chidren's section in the center of the room, where we had ample space to display some of the magnificent cover illustrations, and could also offer the items at elevating heights based on the reading level.

After many months of cataloging and metadata work, we were getting closer! Visitors were popping in throughout the day now to witness the progress and talk with me about the collection. This was an exciting moment! Finally we could gush about the collection with others, and they could actually see and start to understand what we were so excited about. I met so many people who were excited about the library, and became a little sad to tell them my work there would be done on the day that we opened. But what a day it would be when we opened! Soon, we would be ready to learn how to create new user records, and loan items out!

Conducting Inventory and Making Signage

After establishing a schema, and assigning call numbers, it was finally time to conduct an inventory... and answer the linguing question that every person briefed on the project asked "How many books are in this collection?"

An executive decision was made that we would not be implimenting barcodes to use as ID numbers (which is what AFC uses for inventory), at this point in time. (IIC didn't use a handheld laser scanner for any of its processes. I don't mind, the book covers of some of these items had such beautiful bindings, I would feel bad putting more toxic adhesive stickers on them!) So I printed shelf lists and dug in to shelf-read the entire library—a task which takes about 2 days for one person to complete.

Finally we had a count, and knew what we had on the shelf! Yes, we had exactly 3,793 items!

Somewhat predictably, this knowledge brought other problems to the surface that had to be solved before we could celebrate. There were many hundreds of books in the catalog which were not in the library. But, after the inventory, we at least knew what was presently in the library, which was a huge step toward progress! For the purpose of the catalog, this problem was easy to render: we automatically marked object files that had not been updated in the past year as de-accessioned. Another 2-day shelf-reading session verified the reallocation of the item-status changes before we took the next step and scheduled the stagnant records for deletion.

The larger problem was on the administrative end: all of these previously discarded or lost items (from before 2020) were still in the IIC's accounting inventory, and needed to be deleted. Luckily, IIC was able to hire a dedicated and supportive intern from Italy to conduct the massive data project of updating the accounting records. (Which took her about 2 months!) We were all comforted that all of the last touches were now coming into place!

The final step was to add signage to the library, which would enable library users to be as independent as possible—since there would be no librarian available to assist them during open hours. We made shelf labels to enable informal shelf browsing as well as directed searches based on OPAC use, clearly highlighting sections such as Filsofia, Scienze naturale, Insegnare italiano, Vino, Architettura, Opera, Marionette, Storia della poesia, Letteratura latina, Geografia e viaggi d'Italia, Storia Italia 1946-oggi (etc.) and their corresponding Dewey headings. We also posted beautifully designed charts to clarify the meanings of the colored-dot stickers.

At this point, I asked my former co-worker, the Director of the Alliance Francaise of Chicago's library, to visit. She helpfully recommended a supplier for 3 mm label covers and blessed me with "May your shelves soon be rendered a mess!"—a special joke because the pristine state that IIC's library was in at this point reflected the crisp administrative control that we had achived. Yet, any working librarian also reads this state as evidence that the library was off limited to outside use and that no one was using the collection yet...from here on out, the real sign of the success of our efforts would be for the library to need constaint maintanance, the natural effect of a collection that is under demand and actively being used! It was the bittersweet moment, like the "calm before the storm."

The staff of IIC proceeded to prepare for the opening day, by establishing guidelines for patron-borrowing terms, learning how to create new patron accounts, and how to check books in and out.

Opening

Finally, on March 21, 2024 we were ready to open the library to the public! Luca Di Vito, Direttore dell’Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Chicago announced: “La nostra biblioteca rappresenta una risorsa fondamentale per la comunità dell’Istituto, e per tutti coloro che siano interessati ad approfondire la cultura italiana attraverso i libri. Con questo lavoro di ri-catalogazione della biblioteca abbiamo deciso di ampliare soprattutto l’offerta di titoli di narrativa contemporanea, ma anche di creare nuove sezioni tematiche, tra cui una molto importante dedicata all’editoria per l’infanzia e ai giovani lettori, che speriamo diventi un punto di riferimento per molte famiglie del territorio.”

The OPAC is ready to use and can be accessed through IIC's website here.

There was an excellent exhibition scheduled to coincide with the opening launch, an exhibition opening of Teatricci featuring sculptural storytelling constructions by the brillant artist Alessandra Ricci, author and winner of the Andersen 2018 prize, and Children’s Laureate 2022-24! (And the exhibition integrated books from the lbrary's collection!)

Alessandra Ricci at Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Chicago

IIC also invited and author Susanna Mattiangeli, to help us draw focus to the library's new childrens' section. Susanna Mattiangeli gave a creative and reading workshop, where she performed a reading of her book Uno come Antonio (illustrated by Mariachiara di Giorgio) to a large group of children and their families!

Views of the renovated library! Thanks to Luca, Eloise, Lucia, Lucia, and Yvonne!