THE MUNICIPAL FUND
The Municipal Fund is located in the Civic Library in the former Church Immacolata in the centre of the village of Bova, near the Town Hall and the main square, Piazza Roma. The former church that houses the library is an 18th-century structure with late Baroque style features by local craftsmen. For a long time it belonged to the Marzano family, one of the most influential families in Bova, who used it as an aristocratic chapel accessible from the nearby palace (now the Town Hall). The façade, made entirely of richly carved stone, has the coat of arms of the former owners prominently displayed on the portal. The interior has a single nave and is richly decorated, with side pilasters supporting a large round arch.
Thanks to the conservative restoration carried out, the marble covering the Marzano tomb can be seen under a glass panel on the floor. After the restoration work carried out as part of the ISMIA specific project for the valorisation and protection of the ethno-linguistic minority of the Greeks of Calabria (POR Calabria 2000-2006 - Chiesetta dell'Immacolata-Cappella Marzano: restoration and renovation; destination as a library on minorities), the former church of the Immacolata has for years housed the information point and the bookshop, as well as part of the library heritage.
In 2023, with the project "A diffuse library in the village of Bova for nature and culture", the building was dedicated exclusively to the municipal library, including the part of the municipal collection temporarily housed in the Museum of Palaeontology and Natural Sciences of Aspromonte, thus reuniting the entire book heritage, since the transfer of the information point and the bookshop to a more suitable location in the G. Rohlfs Museum of Calabrian Greek offered more space for housing the entire municipal collection.
To date, the books and periodicals kept in the former Church of the Immacolata number 2,396 volumes, although the actual number is higher, since the periodicals and encyclopaedias have been listed and catalogued from the first number to the last. A collection whose cultural heterogeneity suggests repeated donations from third parties over time (numerous school books for primary, secondary and high schools, such as anthologies, dictionaries, atlases, encyclopaedias; non-fiction, literature, medicine, agronomy, newspapers, magazines, children's books, books dedicated to Calabria and in particular to the Grecanica language, etc.).
Since the 1970s there has been a great interest in books on local and Calabrian history. Indeed, the Municipal Fund contains interesting volumes of poetry, essays and novels by local authors, including works by Napoleone Vitale, Saverio Strati and Corrado Alvaro. In addition to a very interesting bound reproduction of the National Association for the Moral and Material Interests of Southern Italy (ANIMI), founded by Umberto Zanotti Bianco, there are other books dedicated to the "Public Library - Municipality of Bova Superiore", which dates back to 1950, the year in which the "Reading and Information Centre" was founded in Bova.
With the project "Biblioteca diffusa nel Borgo di Bova tra natura e cultura" (diffuse library in the village of Bova between nature and culture) of 2023, the Municipal Fund will be enriched with audio books and contemporary books.
To date, there are 2,396 books and periodicals in the former Church of the Immacolata.
The digitisation, carried out with the help of planetarium instruments, was based on the concept of preservation and then on the protection of authors' and publishers' rights (Law no. 633 of 22 April 1941 and transposition of EU Directive 2019/790 - G.U. no. 283 of 27 November 2021).
For preservation purposes, it was decided to digitise not only unpublished and unfortunately poorly preserved books from the Municipal Fund, but also written testimonies such as letters from the front written by soldiers during the Second World War, and the loan registers of the old Public Library, totalling 259 volumes.
CATALOGUES
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DIGITALISATION
For the purposes of cataloguing and digitisation, the library's holdings were divided into subject areas and classified according to their cultural content. Due to the great heterogeneity of the subjects, the following cultural areas have been created:
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- non-fiction
- Foreign literature (17-volume series on Indian literature)
- Various Calabrian magazines
- Periodicals on architecture and conservation
- Calabrian history
- Geography - tourism and places in Italy
- Calabria (sector), including three volumes on the 18th century and two on Magna Graecia
- literature
- Law
- ANIMI Fund (thirty-five books) and 'Bova Superiore Public Library' (15 books)
- Religion
- Medicine
- Gastronomy
- Library science
- Children and young people's literature
- Sports
- Music
- Politics
- Encyclopaedic dictionaries and reference works
- Art and decoration
- Bova (section dedicated to)
- Calabria and southern studies
- Agronomy and zoology
- Calabrian linguistics and Greek