Conservation libraries & Data Curation : from Custos catalogi to Digital Librarian : the case of Ambrosian Library

The massive projection of information contents in the digital world and the ever-increasing pervasiveness and ubiquity of web-based resources are unstoppable phenomena that force a careful reflection on the role that public libraries and conservation libraries play in the traditional cultural scene; on how they are perceived by users; on how they are solicited by the digital world and how they adapt (or at least try to do so) to change towards this aspect. The concept of public library can certainly be considered as one of the most disruptive cultural innovations of the modern era: this innovation has profoundly marked the development of our society up to the present day,

"helping to shape its forma mentis and gradually becoming more and more ""transparent"" because now considered ""normal""; however, there are many pitfalls and difficulties that our society ‒ hyper-connected and bulimic in the spasmodic search for accessible contents in digital ‒ puts forward the public library, even more, if it corresponds to the particular meaning of the conservation library. The public library and the conservation library are very often faces of the same coin, souls of the same institution, face the challenge of the digital dimension. [Publisher's text]