9th of August

Since Friday, July 16, the Vatican Apostolic Library has closed its doors to scholars and researchers for the usual summer two-month period. Two months of which only two weeks will be completely closed - exactly from 9 to 22 August -, while the other six are dedicated to ordinary and extraordinary maintenance work.

Every library, as a living organism, has its own physiology, and an essential element of this physiology is the summer "lethargy": closed to the outside world, it is finally possible for us to dedicate ourselves to a series of activities that the presence of scholars and the ordinary routine would make it impossible.

This month, for example, the review of the manuscript collections is underway: divided into pairs, the members of the department and their custodians are verifying that all the volumes are present, each in their place, in good condition and with clear and correct labels . At the same time, the custodians of the printed matter proceed to check the presence and location of the printed volumes, in the reading rooms and in the deposits, through a special system of microchips, which, applied to each volume, are detected by a special reader.

In the absence of external distractions, in the empty and silent study rooms, it is finally easier to advance the work of cataloging and studying our heritage: the Vatican Library, in fact, includes about a dozen scholars and internal cataloguers among its staff. whose task is to order and make known our collections.

If you want to follow us on Instagram, we will take you to discover the many activities of our summer "hibernation"!