To read more about TinyCat’s Library of the Month feature, visit the TinyCat Post archive here.

The Pecorella Library of the Center for Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies (CAMNES) has been a personal favorite of mine for some time now, and I’m very pleased to feature them as TinyCat’s January Library of the Month.

Co-Director Dr. Guido Guarducci of CAMNES fielded my questions for the library:

First, what is your library, and what is your mission—your “raison d’être”?

The ‘Pecorella Library’ is part of CAMNES, the Center for Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies. We are a study and research center based in Florence (Italy), which coordinates academic programs related to ancient studies as well as international archaeological excavation projects. The main corpus of the library is based on the private collection of Paolo Emilio Pecorella, an Italian archaeologist of the Near East and professor at the University of Florence who unfortunately died in 2005 at the archaeological site of Tell Barri, Syria. Our library is mainly focused on the history, philology and archaeology of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures and is open to the public.

Tell us some interesting ways you support your community.

We offer research and bibliographical support to the Italian and international students who need further insight on archaeological publications, while scholars from Italian research institutions are also fond of our small library due to the presence of recent and rare publications in the field.

What are some of your favorite items in your collection?

We are particularly proud of very old publications of the past century, for example preliminary and final excavation reports and a good section on cylinder seals, which professor Pecorella collected in his home library and that now are available to all. Last but not least, we are also very proud of our own series SANEM (Studies on the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, pictured left) that was recently established—you can find them at camnes.org/publications.

What’s a particular challenge you experience, as a small library?

Due to the small dimensions of the library, we are lacking professional personnel, which is certainly a difficult aspect to handle but at the same time rewarding. It is also difficult to communicate to the rest of the world of our existence since we are located within a building and not directly accessible from a street. Fortunately, scholars and students know about us but we would also like the broad public to interact with us due to our ‘public archaeology’ philosophy.

What’s your favorite thing about TinyCat? Anything you’d love to add?

We love it! It is a very flexible and slick interface that gives you high quality service just as a large library with a dedicated OPAC. The possibility to customize certain parts is top notch! Plus the annual fee is very reasonable, especially for our status.

Want to learn more about The Pecorella Library? Check them out on TinyCat and at camnes.org.

To read up on TinyCat’s previous Libraries of the Month, visit the TinyCat Post archive here.

Calling all TinyCat libraries: become TinyCat’s next Library of the Month—just send us a Tweet @TinyCat_lib or email Kristi at kristi@librarything.com.