Pubblicato il: 04/11/2024
Sala del Settecento

The renovation of the Law and Humanities Library - The University of Milan

The Sala del Settecento, another reading room of the BSGU, officially reopened on 4 November, providing the student community with quiet and comfortable spaces for study and research. 

The inauguration started at 2 pm. Rector Marina Brambilla, Vice Rector for Student Services and Right to Higher Education Stefano Simonetta, and library manager Cristina Selva took a tour of the newly repurposed spaces, whose furniture and services have been completely redesigned to ensure better comfort and functionality.

Located on the first underground floor of the Via Festa del Perdono 3 building, the Sala del Settecento has 110 seats over two rooms (A and B), with a lamp for each workstation, and over five thousand metres of bookshelves containing the Roman law collections and numerous legal journals. By the end of the whole renovation project, the room will also host the University's named collections and other historical volumes.

A bibliographic information service is also available, along with a self-checkout station and photocopiers

Standard opening hours will be 9 am - 7 pm from Monday to Friday. As for all libraries which are part of the University Library Service, seats have to be booked via the LezioniUnimi app or the dedicated website.

The reopening of the Sala del Settecento is part of a larger renovation project involving the whole Law and Humanities Library (BSGU).

The goal of this project, which started in January 2023 with the reopening of the Sala Centrale, is to ensure easier access to the collections and more efficient library services, allowing for a better study and research experience. To this end, the library spaces will be rationalised, and the BSGU rooms will be reduced from eight to four. The Sala Centrale will have a clearer focus on textbooks and exam materials, the Sala del Settecento will display named collections and historical volumes, the Nuova Crociera, which is currently under renovation, will be a space for study and research, while the Sala Senato will host antique books.

"The BSGU renovation project is just one of many actions launched by the University to increase the efficiency of its facilities, not only in terms of services, but also in terms of comfort and accessibility. The goal is for our students and researchers to be able to truly perceive our campus as a welcoming place, a place that facilitates the sharing of knowledge and experiences" - said Rector Marina Brambilla. "At the moment, of course, the project is causing the temporary closure of certain rooms, and the consequent relocation of thousands of books and journals. This relocation has been carefully planned by our librarians, to whom we owe our gratitude, as their work ensures that our library collections remain accessible even during the renovation works, though to a more limited extent. If it wasn't for them, these books would remain unavailable to the public for quite a long time".