The database Anagrafe delle biblioteche italiane (Register of Italian Libraries) holds detailed information about more than 16.000 libraries all over the country. Though many other similar databases exist, Anagrafe is the only one in Italy which collects information about almost every kind of library: among the others, those managed by Government, Regions, Universities, and many of those managed by schools, churches, academies and foundations.

The data stored in Anagrafe are rather diverse: besides the strictly anagraphical ones (name, address, telephone...), Anagrafe also manages data about holdings, catalogues, services, and even some administrative data.

All these data are accessible on line, 24 hours a day, at http://anagrafe.iccu.sbn.it, which is the main site, and at http://www.internetculturale.it/genera.jsp?l=en, through the section Italian Libraries.

A crucial role is played by ISIL code, a unique identifier compliant with ISO 15511 (ISIL, International Standard Identifier for Libraries and related organizations) which every library is assigned by ICCU when it first enters Anagrafe. Such a code is made up of four parts:

• a country code compliant with ISO 3166-1 (e.g. IT, DE, UK, US...)
• a hyphen (“-”)
• a province code (e.g. RM for Rome, NA for Naples, VE for Venice...)
• a progressive number of four digit left-padded with zeroes; this number starts from zero for every different province code

For instance, IT-RM0267 is the code for National Library in Rome.

ICCU is the ISIL Registration Agency for Italy.

For details, please send an e-mail message to anagrafe@iccu.sbn.it.

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