AIB. Vita dell'Associazione

Kai Ekholm
Chair of IFLA / FAIFE committee
Director
The National Library of Finland
P.O.Box 15 (Unioninkatu 36)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

Dear Mr. Ekholm,
I would like to inform You of a very serious threat to the freedom of expression in library, which seems to be literally under attack. It is now occurring in the Province of Venezia and we fear it may spread all over Veneto, with unacceptable consequences for all the public libraries of that region.
Last January, 16th, the Culture Councillor for the Province of Venezia proposed to remove from the public libraries of that territory all books written by the authors that in 2004 signed a petition on behalf of Cesare Battisti, a terrorist who was given four lives sentences and who recently took refuge in Brazil. This initiative was welcomed by the Education Councillor of that region and passed forward to its schools and libraries.
The Associazione Italiana Biblioteche protested againts such an action, that clearly violates Italian Constitution and clashes with public library's purposes. Every public library plays an active role for democracy only when "collections and services are not subjected to any form of ideological, political or religious censorship, nor commercial pressure", as written in the UNESCO Public Library Manifesto.
Our Association wrote a press release and, last January, 19th, sent a letter to both the President of the Province of Venezia and the President of Regione Veneto asking them to prevent any action conceived to restrict the access to all libraries' collections and papers. Both documents are available in Italian on our website.
Hereby, I kindly urge Your Committee to take a public position in support of ours, in order to help us protecting both the role and the professional service of librarians and to stand up for libraries' open and democratic nature.
Relying on Your attention and on the common trust in a society free from censure, which is the core of all FAIFE colleagues' work, I look forward to hearing from You.

Best regards,

Prof. Mauro Guerrini
President of AIB (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche)

Rome, 25th January 2011
Prot. 12/2011