Cara Biblioteca – A participatory process for the Comune di Ferrara

The Comune di Ferrara has decided to engage in a participatory process to learn more about needs, expectations and critical issues linked to the municipal Library Network service. The project is called “Cara Biblioteca” (Dear Library) and, starting in February 2022, it will be engaging with local people through a series of meetings organised by BAM!

For the administration, the process is an opportunity to plan services in keeping with local people’s needs, as well as to make libraries a central feature on a local level, assigning them the role of a civic place of aggregation and cultural enhancement, capable of contributing to the creation of a new cultural welfare system in Ferrara.

During an initial phase, BAM! will analyse the service and context, as well as the benchmarks, so that it can start identifying critical issues and possibilities for network development.

Later on, the process will involve local people, stakeholders and the library staff themselves in a series of guided meetings led by BAM! facilitators, designed to uncover users’ needs and expectations.

This will make it possible to identify services to be implemented and the role that the network can play in meeting user needs and reflecting the path being followed by the administration.

It will also provide a clearer picture of the strengths, the critical issues to be resolved and the opportunities to be pursued in order to improve the Library Network.