The Library of the Academy of Architecture moves to Palazzo Turconi

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Institutional Communication Service

16 November 2020

The Academy of Architecture Library is temporarily closed. It will move into its new premises in Palazzo Turconi, in a more attractive location, with new services, an expanded research platform, and where all books will be available on free access shelves. All services of the Academy Library will therefore be suspended from 3 December 2020 until 31 January 31 2021. From 7 December 2020, the transition of USI's libraries to the new swisscovery platform will also take place.

From Thursday, 3 December 2020 until Sunday, 31 January 2021 all services of the Academy Library will be suspended to facilitate the move, which will involve a total of 180,000 volumes.

Some services may already be subject to restrictions or changes. To avoid unpleasant inconveniences, please check the updated page of the Library (link here).

Before closing (3 December 2020):

  • The Library invites you to complete your bibliographical research, request for loans, collection of study materials;
  • professors and students involved in the Diploma are granted an extraordinary loan of up to ten books.

During the closing period (3 December 2020-31 January 2021):

  • the duration of the loans will be automatically renewed until the new opening;
  • in the foyer of Palazzo Turconi, a station will be set up to return books and audiovisual material on loan only.

The relocation of the Academy Library is also an opportunity to remind that from 7 December 2020 the USI Libraries will become part of a new library system by moving their catalogues to swisscovery. This new IT platform will bring together the heritage of more than 400 scientific libraries in Switzerland. For USI, the system will be called Reperio and will give users access to the entire directory of scientific documents in Switzerland. To access the service, users of USI's libraries will need a new registration (more information here). 

The new headquarters - Palazzo Turconi

In Palazzo Turconi the Library will find its proper and definitive home. The public will be able to enjoy both the building and the library collections, and the new premises will make the Library shine its true potential. The entire second floor with its 1800 square meters will be entirely dedicated to the study rooms and the book collections with access, on an open shelf, to all the current collection, the libraries of authors and special funds, the vast assortment of newspapers, magazines and DVDs.

The renovation of the neoclassical building focuses on the quality of the spaces. Spaces suited to the richness and diversity of the collections and the intense attendance. The new headquarters will have 90 studio spaces and four small study rooms for group projects and seminars. On the shelves, about 180 thousand volumes will be on display (previously there were 30 thousand), and one of the most extensive collections of architecture and design magazines, urban planning and art, restoration and photography, urban, landscape and territorial planning and so on. Also, there will be separate monitored and air-conditioned rooms for the antique volumes and the photographic and print collections.

The aim is to bring the Library closer to an ancient study, or Wunderkammer, that favours "serendipity", and that helps to broaden the horizons of the study of researchers and students with discoveries freed from the uniform logarithms of search engines, but by analogies, correspondences and parallels not necessarily foreseen and apparently even accidental.

 

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