La Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea (The Little Library of Amantea) is a multi-purpose space opened in 2024 by Associazione La Guarimba with the support of Fondazione Carical. Located in the heart of Amantea, it quickly became a place of gathering and collective growth, offering an alternative to young people leaving for the big cities, strengthening solidarity and increasing the social capital of the town.
Entry is completely free.
HOURS
Open every day
from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm
SERVICES
Study Room
Free Wi-Fi
Computers
Book Loans
Creative Workshops for Children
Feminist Reading Club
Recording Studio
Baby Pit Stop
SBN CODE
CSAAM
The project, supported by Fondazione Carical, was born in 2021 as a seed: an idea that grew out of listening to the territory, following an analysis of the needs and shortcomings that mainly affect students and workers in the area.
For more than ten years we have worked closely with civil society in Amantea, and our experience has allowed us to analyse the state of cultural offer and social aggregation in the community. Our impression, as young people living and working in the area, has always been of a context of great potential, but strongly held back by the lack of investment and by management shortcomings in several areas.
The most vulnerable members of the community (young people, migrants and the elderly) suffer from neglect and the absence of initiatives dedicated to them, which can only be experienced online and at costs inaccessible to many families. In addition, the lack of spaces dedicated to them, such as usable public parks or play areas, makes it hard for them to gather beyond personal initiatives.
The situation is even harder in the hinterland, where several municipalities live in even greater isolation and neglect. Residents of Aiello, Cleto, Belmonte, Longobardi, Fiumefreddo Bruzio and the whole surrounding area, about 10,000 people in total, look to Amantea as the shopping centre they visit on weekends and in summer.
With this in mind, we carried out a survey to understand what the community really needed, producing a questionnaire aimed at young people up to 25, school students, university students and young workers, with questions designed to understand their needs and expectations.
We collected a sample of 100 valid responses, representative of our target audience. The questionnaire showed that 92% of Amantea’s students are forced to study at home, citing problems such as distraction, lack of a fast connection and a personal desk. 91% of them said they would attend a study room or library to study. Through structured proposals on value scales, we found that many students need quiet spaces, centrally located in Amantea, with internet access and where they can socialise with other people their age.
70% of them welcomed a library where they could also borrow books and comics.
92% of young people also expressed a wish for a cinema, while all of those who practise artistic disciplines such as music, dance and theatre (about 25% of the total) said they would use a dedicated rehearsal space. 59% of them also wished to attend art courses and workshops.
From this information, we began to imagine the space: how it could be divided, what it should contain and how it would be used. The initial idea was to build a new floor inside the building that houses our offices, to gradually build our house of culture in Amantea.
From the very beginning, the project ran into obstacles and bureaucratic delays that would have slowed the birth of the space considerably.
For this reason, when a space in the building next to our offices was put up for sale, we concluded that the best solution was to buy an existing space and transform it into the Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea.
The purchase was finalised on 5 July 2024. With the aim of making the space usable already during the festival days, work on the design and renovation of the premises started immediately. Despite the little time available and the usual problems such a project involves, thanks to a team of professionals and the help of the whole Guarimba team, on 6 August, the day before La Guarimba International Film Festival began, we inaugurated the Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea, the first library with a study room, screening and conference room and music recording studio.
The space has three main rooms: a library and study room with free internet and computers, a recording studio, and a screening and conference room with a projector. The bibliographic collection will keep growing gradually, based on the community’s needs. Our intention is to recover the lost books of the town and buy new ones, to serve readers who are as varied as possible: academic books (including dictionaries and reference texts), novels, comics, fantasy and more. Visitors can read the books in the library or borrow them for a set period.
More than fifty people attended the event and, besides the local community, the mayors of Cleto, Lago, San Pietro in Amantea, Belmonte, Longobardi, Fiumefreddo and Aiello Calabro were present. We showed them the space and began planning together the opening hours and how it would be used, so that the room adapts to people’s needs, and not the other way round.
As early as the next morning, students and workers from Amantea went to the library to prepare for their exams and work independently. From the afternoon, the screening room became the home of La Grotta Dei Piccoli, hosting its workshops and the festival dedicated to the youngest.
With the Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea we aim to offer our community a chance of renewal, against inertia and neglect, to build active citizenship that lives its everyday life through social encounters, stimulating cultural events and the chance to express its own identity.
In August, new users used the Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea to study and work independently, in a space that provides the comfort needed for productivity. Donations of books from the community have also increased, as, step by step, the community understands and fully appreciates the meaning and importance of an open and free cultural space for everyone.
Over time we understood that this seed has grown into something bigger: around the library a cultural district, the Territorio Guarimba, has taken shape and keeps growing with the community.
August 2024. The library opens, with the support of Fondazione Carical.
November 2024. We become the first point in Calabria to host the magazine Scomodo.
26 April 2025. We open the Baby Pit Stop together with the UNICEF Provincial Committee of Cosenza, in a collaboration that began more than ten years ago. The service, made possible by the contribution of Fondazione Carical and the support of UNICEF, makes the library a safe place where mothers can breastfeed in complete privacy, and the changing tables in the restrooms are available to all parents. The Committee also donated about ten children’s books and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Learn about the UNICEF Baby Pit Stop initiative.
6 May 2025. The library receives the official notification of recognition from the Ministry of Culture and joins the Italian National Library Service (SBN), the network of Italian libraries. This means a national online catalogue, inter-library loans and shared projects with thousands of libraries across Italy.
Premio Italia Patria della Bellezza (May 2026). The prize, promoted by the Fondazione Italia Patria della Bellezza, was awarded to the Territorio Guarimba di Amantea, with a grant of 20,000 euros. Read the news.
Premio Nazionale Patrimoni Viventi (2025 and 2026). The Piccola Biblioteca di Amantea received a special mention in the private bodies category, from the Centro Universitario Europeo per i Beni Culturali. Learn about the prize.
On 5 August 2025 we celebrated the first year of the Piccola Biblioteca. A year earlier we opened the doors of a space many considered impossible. Today we celebrate a year of culture, encounters, learning and shared dreams.
The numbers: 1,535 users: 809 in the study room, 309 in courses and other activities, 231 in the creative workshop and 120 in the children’s cinema. The community also donated 702 books.
Behind every number there is a story: children who found a safe space to learn and create, migrants who found a place to study and integrate, teenagers who found a safe place to study and meet, adults who rediscovered the pleasure of reading and of exchanging ideas.
The first year taught us a lot: a weekly agenda published every week, a WhatsApp community of 95 people to promote the workshops, a monthly upgrade of equipment and spaces, and user counts from the very first month.
For the coming year: weekly workshops, monthly courses and the goal of expanding the network to local organisations.
We are a Scomodo point. Since November 2024 we host the magazine Scomodo, the newspaper of university students, and we are the first point in Calabria to do so. A journalistic partner with whom we share the idea of a culture that helps us understand the present.
Special thanks to Fondazione Carical, the Ministry of Culture, the Embassy of Norway and the UNICEF Provincial Committee of Cosenza, and to volunteers, partners, institutions and supporters, and to everyone who donated books, time, ideas and love.
Join our activities, bring a friend. Follow us on Instagram @bibliotecaguarimba.
Make a donation and we’ll send you to SAVE THE MONKEY.
