Outlook: The Biblioteca Giuseppe Dossetti of the Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII in Bologna

Questions posed to the director of the Foundation and of the Library, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alberto Melloni, and to Dr. Ephrem Aboud Ishac, researcher from the University of Graz

Abstract

In the course of a Scholarship for Transnational Access to Special Collections and Transnational Access to Archival Documents provided by ReIReS (Research Infrastructure on Religious Studies) in March 2019, the author had the opportunity to make detailed acquaintance with the Biblioteca Giuseppe Dossetti of the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII (FSCIRE) in Bologna. This contribution aims to share the experiences made there. The Biblioteca is a research library specializing in religious studies on all major or minor religious communities (including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism). With its copious holdings, unique in their composition, it is one of a kind, a site of contact and exchange for international experts – including those from Austrian institutions – and for corresponding research and publications.