The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and Bibliographic Information received its current name in 1975, following the constitution of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
The Institute cooperates with the Italian libraries, even those pertaining to different administrations (Towns, Provinces, Regions, Cultural Institutes). The main result of this collaboration was the establishment of the National Library Service. This national on-line network, to which the libraries of national and local institutions and universities are connected, constitutes a base for the national collective on-line catalogue, which is managed by the Institute.
ICCU has a deep expertise in digitisation standards and guidelines and coordinates on behalf of the Ministry major digital cultural heritage projects at national level such as Internet Culturale, the portal of the digital resources of the Italian libraries, and CulturaItalia, the national aggregator for Europeana. ICCU will contribute to investigating requirements, best practices and state of art in digital skills needed by library professionals, with a special focus on research and Open Science models.
ICCU is also involved in international projects. The institute coordinates inDICEs (Measuring the ImpaCt of DIgital CulturE) and takes part in other European projects such as Europeana Archaeology and ARIADNE Plus.
