Innovating services and products in libraries to meet users’ needs

Libri del tempo presente addresses the community of young readers with the aim of establishing a constructive and informal dialogue between them and the libraries in the Turin area in order to reinforce, in a new way, the natural role of libraries: to educate the public in reading and understanding relevant issues of our present.

Libri del tempo presente continues the cooperation between Melting Pro, Turin’s civic libraries and cultural institutions, a cooperation that had already begun with the Top Library project.

By putting into practice the principles of Human – centred design, a creative approach to problem solving and a tool for shared planning, the project creates moments of collaboration between libraries, librarians and young people under 35 who bring their creative contribution and the freshness of their ideas to the institutions involved.

There are two general objectives:

To create a list of “Books of the present time”, i.e. books whose values and messages are linked to fundamental themes of our contemporary times.
To expand and strengthen some of the initiatives of the bodies involved in the project with an engagement activity designed in a collaborative manner between institutions and young people.

We accompanied our partners on a journey of knowledge and application of the ACED (Audience Centred Experience Design) method and the processes of Design Thinking. Thanks to the contribution of young people in the co-creation activities, the two institutions involved in the project – Polo del ‘900 and Sistema Bibliotecario Area Metropolitana – have prototyped two engagement actions to be grafted onto initiatives already existing within the institutions. The testing phase will begin in October.

To learn more about how to use Audience Centred Experience Design and encourage the participation of your users/publics, contact Patrizia Braga, Head of the Participation and Organisational Development Area.