"I would like to become a librarian and work in a library": such is the enthusiasm of the young protagonists of the "C'eral'acca: disability information desk" documentation centre at the Humanities Library of the University of Perugia. In 2015 eight young people with disabilities embarked on a training path lasting almost a full academic year (2015-2016) within a university library facility. Guided by specialised tutors and taught by the librarians, they followed all the phases of work in the library, in particular the book's workflow: from purchase to the shelf.
Now books and journals are labelled by subject and arranged in good order on the shelves of the Centre. The book collection is still usable today and can be consulted by all users of the Humanities Library.
Great, then, was the enthusiasm of the young people, who in more than one case expressly voiced their pride and their happiness at having had the chance to take part in the project, which they experienced as a significant experience of qualification and work. Great, moreover, was the satisfaction of the parents and of the Associazione Italiana Persone Down at the initiative.
But how did this initiative come about? The present writer is currently the Head of the Humanities Library of the Library Services Centre of the University of Perugia, and lived through and followed the initiative step by step as an active trainer both of the tutors and of the young people.
The documentation centre is a project developed following a specific agreement between the University of Perugia and the Associazione Italiana Persone Down (AIPD), signed on 30 July 2015 and carried out with the financial support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia; the object and aim of the collaboration is to "expand the activity of study and research and to take part on the themes of accessibility and inclusion, while at the same time promoting awareness-raising initiatives addressed to the whole population, carried out together with associations, public and private services and the institutions operating in the area".
The Centre, officially opened on 16 November 2015, ran regularly with alternating morning and afternoon opening hours until June 2016. Eight young people with disabilities worked there, accompanied by specialised tutors, in the role of documentalists/librarians. All the information about the Centre was placed on the home page of the Library Services Centre (brief description, opening hours, addresses, contacts, etc. http://www.csb.unipg.it/servizi/servizi-bibliotecari#Speciali).

Initially, training meetings were held to illustrate the points of the so-called iter of the book and of the journals, from the purchase phase through to making the bibliographic material available on the shelf.
Here, then, are the points addressed and the various phases of the experience.

1. Together with the tutors, the bibliographic material to be acquired on subjects relevant to the theme of the project was identified, and lists were subsequently sent to the bookshops and suppliers; once the material had arrived, the handling and processing of the invoices was carried out, and more generally some aspects of the administrative and accounting procedures were dealt with.
2. At this stage it was decided not to use Aleph, the cataloguing software in use at the Library Services Centre, but to set up a simplified database, an Excel file with the compulsory and essential cataloguing fields; namely: author, title, publisher, place of publication, year of publication, any membership of the book in a specific series, ISBN number. The cataloguers, book in hand, learned in which parts of the book these pieces of information are to be sought. The same procedure applied to the journals, with the identification of title, year, volume, issue and ISSN number.
3. For subject indexing, a method was adopted that was not too complex but that met their needs and made it easy to identify the topic. The subjects and the location codes of the books and journals were chosen by the tutors and the reference teachers. To make searching for and re-shelving the library material easier and more intuitive, the young people decided to choose a different colour for each subject location, assigning that colour to the label.
4. Processing of the book. After the subject indexing of the book, work moved on to the creation of the label. The staff provided the project participants with the scheme, adapted, used by the Humanities Library: the labels were attached to the spine of the book, and finally the anti-theft magnetic strip and the Centre's stamp were applied to the volume.
5. Home lending. It is of course envisaged that the bibliographic material acquired and catalogued should also be available for home lending. The young people went to the printer's and had a loan slip printed, made up of two parts, to be filled in by the user: one part of the slip to be placed on the shelf in place of the book, and the other intended to be filed by the young people in a dedicated card index.
6. Display and consultation of the bibliographic material. In order to make the material catalogued and arranged by the young people on the shelves visible, and hence consultable by users, it was decided to put the Excel files online, making them accessible through the page dedicated to the Centre on the home page of the Library Services Centre of the University of Perugia.

The future objectives are to continue with this project, to draw up a set of Regulations for the documentation centre and to activate other services. Among these there could be interlibrary loan and the supply of document copies, involving the staff of the Humanities Library; contacts could be established, in addition to those with schools and with the local education system, with the bodies of the Municipal Library System that hold bibliographic material on subjects akin to those of interest to the Centre, so as to create a network of information and of access to external resources.

It is important to underline some aspects that convey the sense of the initiative and a measure of its success.
From the very start the young people proved very autonomous; they always collaborated actively in organising the creation of the Centre, making great progress in preparing the library material for the public and in managing the collection itself. They also acquired an appropriate capacity for verbal expression in the field of library science and developed smoother relations with the library staff. Essential to the success of the initiative, thanks also to the daily and patient work of the tutors, were the sense of togetherness, the calm atmosphere, and the awareness that the result could be achieved only through good teamwork.
In conclusion. Taking up the spirit of the UNESCO Public Library Manifesto (IFLA 1994 and AIB, see "Per una biblioteca accessibile" at http://www.aib.it/aib/commiss/cnbp/access.htm), the University of Perugia, through this experience, sought to foster and guarantee the integration of people with disabilities by involving them in its activities and services.
One need only search the web to find many examples of cultural bodies, municipal public libraries, documentation centres and schools up to secondary level that seek to ensure the fullest accessibility of services for differently abled people. In general these are experiences that make the most of good practices, of training and of the experience gained in the educational field by families, teachers, educators, health and social-care workers, and cooperatives and volunteers.
There are, to be sure, inclusion projects, many for instance in the field of restoration, but the novelty and the strength of the Perugia project in the field of libraries lay in entrusting to the young people themselves the task of creating a documentation centre from nothing: and they gave it a soul, making it live for the benefit of the whole community. For all this, C'eral'acca constitutes a unique experience in the Italian scene and an extraordinary one of its kind, one that moreover sees a higher-education institution involved for the first time. The University of Perugia has managed to combine the logic of work with that of welcome and integration, promoting a culture of inclusion and spreading attention to diversity, making of it a resource and a moment of growth for all.
It is precisely because of these results achieved that we hope the project can continue and, above all, that our example will be followed by other institutions.

The summary given here was presented during the meeting for the presentation of the results, "Docucentriamoci", on 21 June 2016. The event poster, with some photographs of the Centre and of the young people, can be seen at http://www.csb.unipg.it/notizie/archivio-notizie/676-docucentriamoci-l-avventura-nel-centro-di-documentazione-c-eral-acca

At the close of this brief contribution, one cannot fail to recall and thank all those involved, beginning naturally with the Rector, Prof. Franco Moriconi, who strongly wanted the project, Prof. Andrea Capaccioni, the Rector's Delegate for Library Services, Prof. Laura Arcangeli for services to students with disabilities and specific learning disorders (DSA), and Dr Antonella Bianconi, former Director of the Library Services Centre. For AIPD I would mention its president Ferdinando Valloni, Dr Gabriella Rocco, Project Manager, and Dr Benedetta Piandani and Dr Laura Bellanti, tutors of the people with disabilities to whom the project was addressed, and the members of the joint committee with technical and operational functions, made up of Dr Moira Sannipoli and Dr Sara Scarabattieri for the University and, for AIPD, Dr Valeria Negri and Dr Chiara Sebastiano.
Heartfelt thanks go finally to all the Library staff involved and to the workers of the CAeB Cooperative, in particular the coordinators Roberta Innamorati, Giovanna Pietrini and Chiara Moretti: the success of the initiative owes much also to the sensitivity, kindness and helpfulness shown by them and by all the Library staff. And above all I am glad to be able to express, on their behalf too, our thanks to the tutors and especially to all the young people (Pamela Burzigotti, Sara Chiodini, Anna Paola Dell'Aquila, Alessandro Fanelli, Marilisa Grifani, Fabrizia Lopilato, Domenico Riccardi, Giorgio Volpi), without whom this project would not have been possible, and our library today would be much the poorer.

Sabrina Boldrini, who graduated in Classics at Perugia and specialised in Classical Archaeology at Padua, has been a librarian at the Humanities Library of the Library Services Centre of the University of Perugia since 2001, and since 2015 Head of the Library Facility of Letters and Education Sciences, which comprises, besides the Humanities Library, the Philosophy Library and the Library of Anthropology and Pedagogy.