[AIB] Italian Library Association (AIB) English Pages

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The Italian Library Association
(Associazione Italiana Biblioteche)

[ Italian version]

N.B. Most links are to pages in Italian only.

The Associazione Italiana Biblioteche is the professional association of Italian librarians.
Founded in 1930, AIB is the only general library association in Italy, the only National Association Member of IFLA, and by far the oldest and largest association from this field in Italy.

History

The Italian Library Association was founded in 1930 as "Associazione dei bibliotecari italiani" (Association of Italian Librarians), soon after the first World Conference of Libraries and Bibliography held in Rome and Venice in 1929. In the Thirties the Association was under the control of the (Fascist) Ministry of Education, who appointed the President, Vice-Presidents and Secretary.
After the Liberation, in 1946-1948, Italian librarians re-established the Association as "Associazione italiana per le biblioteche" (Italian Association for Libraries), on democratic bases.
In 1960, with a new statute, the name was slightly modified, taking the current form "Associazione Italiana Biblioteche".
The Statute in force was approved in 1996, with amendments in 1998 and 1999.

Membership

The members, some 4,500+, are mostly librarians, but membership is open to libraries and other persons or bodies interested in the field (e.g., LIS students, international libraries and other organizations, private companies, etc.). Corporate bodies account for some 15% of total membership.
Membership is also open to foreign libraries and librarians, but foreign institutions, as all corporate bodies and students or friends of libraries, are not allowed to vote in general Membership Meetings and elections.

All members receive official communications, the annual Librarian's Diary (Agenda del bibliotecario), the quarterly journal Bollettino AIB, the monthly newsletter AIB Notizie and, in some regions, local newsletters.

General Assembly, Boards, Officers, Committees

The supreme governing body of the Italian Library Association is the General Assembly or Membership Meeting ("Assemblea generale dei soci"), usually held once a year at the National Conference. The General Assembly approves the annual programme of activities and the budget, but usually the balloting of executive boards takes place by mail.

Every three years, personal members (excluding students and friends) vote for a National Executive Board, their own Regional Executive Board, and other two national boards, the Board of Auditors and the Board of Arbiters.
The seven members of the National Executive Board ("Comitato esecutivo nazionale", CEN), in their first meeting, elect between them the President and the Vice-President of the Association and appoint a Secretary and a Treasurer (both usually, ma non necessarily, outside the CEN).
Regional Executive Boards ("Comitati esecutivi regionali", CERs) are established on the same lines, and are the main governing bodies of Regional Branches ("Sezioni regionali"). Regional Branches are now in the number of 20, one for every Italian region.

The main advisory body is the National Council of Regional Presidents ("Consiglio nazionale dei Presidenti regionali"), consisting of the President of the Association and the Presidents of all Regional Branches, assisted by the Secretary.

The Board of Auditors ("Collegio sindacale") inspects the accounts of the Association and the Board of Arbiters ("Collegio dei Probiviri") judges disputes between members or governing bodies.

National affairs are decided upon by the National Executive Board, while Branches are sovereign for regional matters. The President represents the Association and acts for urgent affairs, while day-to-day management is entrusted to the Secretary.

Besides governing bodies, the Italian Library Association has Standing Committees ("Commissioni nazionali") for the various library types or for permanent professional fields and Working Groups ("Gruppi di studio", "di lavoro", "di ricerca") for specific matters. All Committees and Groups are appointed by the National Executive Board for the three-years term of their office and may change in number and name with a new Board.
The active Committees and Groups are:

Main Activities

The aims of AIB's action are so defined in the Statute in force:

The main activities of the Italian Library Association are:

A full annual report (in Italian) from 1994 is available on the Web.

Publications

The Italian Library Association issues two periodical publications:

In some regions, the Branches issue a local newsletter.

As regards books, the Italian Library Association is the publisher of various series and monographs (available titles are around 150):


Copyright AIB 1997-08, ultimo aggiornamento 2002-06-08 (rev. 2007-07-09) a cura di Alberto Petrucciani
URL: http://www.aib.it/aib/cen/aib-e.htm

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