The Italian Women's Library

The Italian Women's Library was born at the end of the Seventies as part of Women's Documentation, Research and Initiative Centre, thanks to a project originated by Associazione Orlando - an indipendent feminist organisation - which wished to create an institution devoted to women's culture and political activism.

Associazione Orlando manages the Library via a contractual agreement with its main sponsor, the Municipal Council of Bologna for the "City of Bologna Women's Documentation, Research and Initiative Centre", and thanks to funding support from the Emilia-Romagna Regional Giunta, the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Carisbo Foundation.

The Italian Women's Library is today the principal collection specialized in women's culture, gender and feminist studies.The Library has a collection of 30.000 books, 20.000 of which are already included in the SBN-National Library System Catalogue, and 495 periodicals, 141 of which currently published.

 

The Digital Library

Thanks to a special financial support of the Italian Ministry of Culture a three year pilot project has started to digitalize rare books, documents and images to preserve them for posterity and make them accessible to a widest possible online user community.