In the library where vinyl LPs are listened to (and where you look around since childhood)

Children hang out at it, go through it, encircle it: the library of Cavaria con Premezzo has decided to bet a lot (but not everything) on the age groups of the youngest. This choice has been led by the physical position of the structure of via Fermi: it is a nice area on two floors, that is included in the building complex of the schools of the town.

“The most beautiful and distinctive aspect is the relationship with children, which is encouraged by us being exactly next to primary and secondary schools,” Alice Favaron, the passionate manager of the library, who is also an employee at the Sistema Bibliotecario Panizzi, that directly runs some structures in the towns near Gallarate, explains. “It is my wonderland,” she jokes around. “Every week one class of the school comes to see us, we get to know the children, they get to know us: they get acquainted with the places, get familiar with the rules of the library, become responsible themselves.”

It starts with the mothers (with the Nati per Leggere project), it continues with the maternal: “We make the train of the library, with the stations and the animated readings. In the first grade, instead, we explain the rules, with the book “Un leone in biblioteca”: in the end, children are given the reader certificate,” Favaron says, showing indeed an envelope of certificates that are waiting for the next class of young readers. There are laboratories like the “Memory delle storie”, the weekly visits and other activities, that are linked to the Consiglio delle Bambine e dei Bambini, that involves the group from the fourth grade to the sixth grade, and that, for example, will realize a project about the topic of peace for the outside area.

An intergenerational work is done (“for example, for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Grandparents’ Day”,) which is linked to the year’s times. So, for example, now in the October of 2018, the exhibition on holidays’ homework, that adorns the hall of the library, is taking place: “Children made drawings and told their stories, which we associated then with the books that are kept here, in the library,” Daniella Rabolli, who is a teacher, is a commissioner for the culture in the town, and works a lot right between books, explains.

Cavaria is a town with a really small centre and a really large suburb with houses, it almost lacks a real centre (there isn’t a real plaza) and the other poles become important as gathering places: the old Palazzo Comunale has become an exhibition place and the library itself, including the outside area. “We have proposed Park&Read activities, through which the classes are involved in outdoors readings, and, during Terra Arte Radici too, we have always done outdoors readings,” the commissioner Rabolli says, “And we have organized the musical drinks, from 18 to 20, once a month, calling teenagers, to also involve this age group.”

“Even though we bet a lot on the part about children, we try not to forget everything else” Rabolli and Favaron, who, entering the world of libraries thanks to community service, work to make the area of Cavaria a full-fledged modern library too, say, “According to the new concept of the library as a third place, a meeting point, a home away from home.” In the library it is possible to take a coffee and to sit, admiring meanwhile the works exposed by the unique project of the Artoteca (which has been made possible by the Sistema Panizzi.) And it is even possible to listen to music from a vinyl LP, with its characteristic hot sound. “It is another peculiarity: a collection of vinyl, approximately two thousand, which we have been given and which are now being categorizing. To a person fond of vinyl, it is a bit of a little treasure, with LPs of all kinds, with their big envelopes.”

THE SCHEDULE

The library has around 20,600 documents (excluding the vinyl ones,) including a good collection of DVDs. The loans in 2018 were 7,090. Opening times: on Monday from 9 to 12, and from 15 to 18; on Wednesday from 18 to 20; on Thursday from 9 to 12; on Friday from 9 to 12, and from 15 to 18. Here the Facebook page.