About the Library
The history of the Library of the Centre for Foreign Languages and Literatures, housed in the prestigious historic site of Piazza Sant’Alessandro, runs parallel to that of the University’s academic structures. Over the years, it has supported teaching and research, adapting to institutional changes over time.
The Library was officially established in May 2012 through the merger of the section libraries of the then Departments of Language Sciences and Comparative Foreign Literatures (English, French, and Iberian Studies) and Linguistic Studies (Germanic and Slavic Studies), which merged in 2012 to form the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. However, the Library’s origins date back much earlier, to the early 1960s. At that time, volumes on foreign languages and literatures, previously kept in the Central Library of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, were relocated to the newly established Institutes of Romance Languages and Literatures, Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Slavic Studies. These Institutes had been created following the launch, in 1957, of the new degree programme in Foreign Languages and Literatures within the Faculty of Arts. Books acquired on the recommendation of professors continued to be inventoried and catalogued by the Faculty Library, which had adopted classification models similar to those recently developed for the Institute of Philosophy, though with different prefixes depending on the linguistic area: 12L for Romance languages, 11L for Germanic languages, and 13L for Slavic languages.
In the following years, the University’s expansion and the increasing number of students led to the search for new spaces to meet changing needs. As a result, in 1995, the Language Institutes moved from the main site in Via Festa del Perdono to the building in Piazza Sant’Alessandro, part of the Baroque-era monumental complex of the same name, whose long restoration had just been completed.
During this period, the libraries of the now five Language Institutes (English, French, Germanic, Iberian, and Slavic Studies) acquired their own dedicated library staff, and all activities—including cataloguing and circulation—began to be carried out directly at the new site, albeit still with support from the Faculty Library for Law, Arts, and Philosophy. A few years later, in 2000, the Institutes were consolidated into two departments: English, French, and Iberian Studies formed the Department of Language Sciences and Comparative Foreign Literatures, while Germanic and Slavic Studies became the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Philological Studies (covering Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe). However, the previous structure was largely maintained, with the new Departments organised into sections reflecting the former Institutes. Likewise, the Institute libraries remained in their original locations, becoming section libraries rather than forming two departmental libraries.
Subsequent years saw continuous growth in the Library’s already extensive collections. However, it also became increasingly clear that the lack of physical consolidation of spaces, collections, and resources was having a negative impact on the overall efficiency of library services.
In 2010, a feasibility study was launched to explore the creation of a unified Language Library at the Sant’Alessandro site. This initiative was closely linked to upcoming institutional changes brought about by the university reform law (Law 240/10 of 30 December 2010), which introduced a new departmental structure. For the Language disciplines, this meant merging the two departments based at Sant’Alessandro into a single entity, providing an opportunity to rethink the organisation of library services. The study confirmed that a unified library could be accommodated in the west wing of the building, aligning the structure of the Language Library with broader trends within the University—moving from increasingly fragmented structures to more integrated ones. This approach also reflected a priority of the University’s Library System at the time, which aimed to reduce the number of separate libraries in favour of service optimisation. As part of a wider refurbishment of the Sant’Alessandro site, the unified library project aimed primarily to overcome the fragmentation caused by the highly complex logistical layout, facilitating resource rationalisation, improving services, and enhancing access to the Library’s collections, which were still distributed across six different floors and two wings of the building.
Shortly after the approval of the new University Statute, which came into effect on 11 April 2012 and established departments as the University’s primary organisational structures, 31 new departments were created on 27 April, replacing the previous 69. Among these was the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, formed by the merger of the two previous Language departments. At the same time, the former departmental libraries were finally merged into a single library, the Library of the Centre for Foreign Languages and Literatures. This new structure was administratively autonomous and became part of what was then the University Library System (Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo), now the University Library Service (Servizio Bibliotecario di Ateneo). However, the unification was functional rather than physical, as the Library remained divided into five reading rooms, each serving a different linguistic and cultural area. Only in 2019, following the necessary institutional steps, did renovation work begin, paving the way for the creation of a fully integrated library in the west wing of the building.
