A Highly Qualified Heritage of Books: from Illuminated Manuscripts to the Virtual Library. The "Dialma Ruggiero" Archives and Centre

La Spezia boasts a highly qualified library tradition. In fact, alongside the over one hundred year old “Ubaldo Mazzini” library with its historical paper section, including illuminated antiphonaries dating back to the last quarter of the XV century coming from the Franciscan monastery now abandoned and standing inside the Naval Arsenal area, Beghi library is very popular and includes the “Castagna” virtual library centre. Also we have the Documentary Archives named after the photographer Sergio Fregoso with a section devoted to the shows, performances and music hosted by the “Dialma Ruggiero” centre, and, as we mentioned before, the Fine Arts and Archaeological Library in the Fine Arts Building. The “Dialma Ruggiero” students centre is multi-purpose, with facilities for artistic activities, shows and performances and a great auditorium with recording and testing rooms. It is an important centre, also hosting shows and performances, theatrical reviews, study seminars and meetings.
The “Roberto Ugo Castagna” virtual library set up in 1997, is also worth a special mention. Without any texts on hard copies, the virtual library uses optical disks, magnetic disks with mass storage in local and remote processors instead. British Library catalogues can also be consulted on CD-ROM, owing to an agreement conveniently stipulated.