Abstract

What collective interest can libraries respond to in the times in which we live? This is the question that summarises the approach that is developing in the library sector in Italy, which sees libraries as one of the social determinants of health, as a node in the system of individual and collective wellbeing. The paper traces the evolution of «social librarianship» also in relation to narrative medicine and the research on libraries in cultural welfare, recalling the impacts in terms of individual quality of life and more generally their potential in terms of collective health, also starting from their capillarity on the territory.