Information Exchanges for Environmental Geology Studies: the Experience of Turin University Geology Library

The Directors of Turin University’s Earth Sciences Department (in origin Geology Institute) were always aware of the importance of scientific information exchange. The Geology Library, founded in 19th Century, since the beginning was never conceived as a “locked case”. Its aim was to lend itself to cultural interchange, obviously within the limits of the time’s technical possibilities. After the WWII, a publications’ eschange service with libraries in Italy and abroad was set up. It is still active at today’s date, and quite useful to increase the Library’s journals collection. As soon as the photo-reproduction technology became of common use, the Library started an informal service of document delivery. Experts who needed articles from journals, or any other kind of bibliographic material, for their studies and researches could obrain them by ordinary mail or fax transmissions. In 2002 the Library gave its contribute to the project “e-Geo: a Sea of Maps” authorizing the scansion of ancient and rare maps, now included in an on-line database of Siena University. After the relocation of the whole Department from the historical see of Palazzo Carignano, the Library was able to achieve both wider spaces and an easier connection to the Net, by “Galileo Ferraris” Institute’s new see. This way, it was possible to provide new and better services to the Library’s users. On the occasion of this relocation, the Turin University Geology Library was named in honor of Professor Roberto Malaroda. A gread deal of work was aimed to the users’ formation/information, trying to make them able to use at best the traditional library instruments (monographs, magazine and map catalogues) and to manage the possibilities given by the ever increasing information flow by various network sites and databases. A leaflet, conceived as a students’ guide to the web resources for geologic sciences, was elaborated in collaboration with the Turin University Mineralogy Library. Since 2007, the “R.Malaroda” Library’s catalogue is accessible through the University’s Portal. The Library joined the Se.Bi.Na system, so its most recent bibliographical material’s description is already consultable on the Collective Catalogue of the “Sistema Bibliotecario d’Ateneo” (University’s Library System”. In time, all the sheets of bibliographic material indexed before 2007 will be transferred to SeBiNa. Quite noticeable, in the perspective of improving the information interchange, was the Mararoda Library’s adherence to the Collective Catalogue of Italian Magazines ACNP and the Network InterLibrary Document Exchange System (NILDE). This way, its already existing service of publication exchange was made quicker and more systematic. In future, initiatives of cooperation with neighbouring libraries will be increased, in order to improve the local services for users. The Library’s aim is to keep improving the user’s possibilities to find the material useful for their researches. The Library is planning the reorganization of ancient bibliographic/archival material recovered during the relocation, to render it available to researchers from Italy and, hopely, from abroad.