Raffaella Inglese (CNBA Chair) Translation by Carla Marchesan
CNBA, (Coordinamento Nazionale delle Biblioteche di Architettura), is an association of Italian librarians working in university and research libraries specializing in architecture and other built environment disciplines, engineering and history of art.
CNBA was formed in the 1970s by, among others, founding members Graziella Gheraldi and Alberta Zanella, who sadly passed away prematurely a few years ago. CNBA objectives according to its charter are:
a. To facilitate collaboration among Italian libraries and information centres, whether public or private, concerned with architecture, and to undertake initiatives to increase access to information.
b. To establish international relations and cooperation with architectural libraries and documentation centres abroad, particularly in the European Union.
c. To establish collaborative working groups within member institutions and with similar organizations within the European Union.
d. To identify, promote and list archives and rare books collections in relevant subjects, according to agreed standards within similar organization in the EU.
e. To organize seminars, study days and other relevant events within the CNBA remit.
f. To yearly organize a professional conference where the established working groups can report on their annual activities and debate current issues.
g. To publish and promote the results of abovementioned activities.
From its establishment, the CNBA website, www.cnba.it has facilitated the continuous development of the above mentioned objectives, also enabling more immediate communication.
Over time we realized that we could do more to make the site a virtual information exchange hub and debate forum.
Over the years, direct relationships with our European colleagues, became somewhat more difficult due to the economic recession, but we realized that cooperation could be facilitated and better structured online.
We therefore decided to substantially re-design our website, which is now fully functional and can be viewed at www.cnba.it
The new website will include a variety of new profiles:
1) Representatives from CNBA member institutions
2) Italian friends of CNBA
3) Friends of CNBA abroad
All members will receive a password and will be able to upload news, information and notices in a virtual press room.
At present we count among our international colleagues Mendrisio Accademy, Italian Switzerland, (which joined as members in 2013); ARCLIB in the UK; Cité du Patrimoine in Paris; our French colleague Philippe Laux from Archires; ABBA in Spain; the TU library in Delft, Netherlands; The Arab Centre for Architecture (ACA) in Beirut, and we are exploring the possibility to establish links with Germany, Greece, Portugal and other countries.
(Ed. Following on Philippe’s footsteps, CNBA Raffaella Inglese will be on an Erasmus visit to London in July 2015)
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