10.6092/issn.3034-8544/16764
The study of the theme “The role of Universities in Urban and Youth Cultural Policies”, within the “Puglia Regione Universitaria” project, was based on the mapping of the cultural resources available in Apulian universities, carried out to assess their accessibility by the university community, their permeability to citizens and their role in terms of improving the quality of urban life.
The survey focused on the direct and active role that Universities play in promoting and producing resources in various areas of culture, in order to estimate their impact on the urban cultural scene and their ability to involve students in the organization and management of cultural events and resources.
The critical issues that emerged from the survey, considered from the perspective of both the referents and students, tend to converge on some recurring problems. These weaknesses were the starting points for the development of a set of proposals for improvement as part of a right-to-education agenda focused on culture.
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Giuliano Volpe
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The Apulian University System and Urban and Youth Cultural Policies: Mapping of Resources and First Proposals for an Agenda
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Giuliano Volpe
2024/01/25
10.6092/issn.3034-8544/16764
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Department of Humanistic Research and Innovation (DIRIUM), University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’
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Education
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The Apulian University System and Urban and Youth Cultural Policies: Mapping of Resources and First Proposals for an Agenda
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                                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024              119




The Apulian University System and Urban
and Youth Cultural Policies: Mapping of
Resources and First Proposals for an
Agenda
PEER REVIEWED


Giuliano Volpe

University of Bari Aldo Moro

giuliano.volpe@uniba.it

Velia A. Polito1

University of Bari Aldo Moro

velia.polito@uniba.it


1.         Introduction.

The current Italian scenario, amid economic, social and political
transformations, calls for a rethinking of the relationship between
universities, cities and communities, not only in terms of reassessing the
role that universities can assume in the development of territorial and
human resources, but also in reorienting the use and production of
cultural resources. In fact, culture is a key player not only in orienting
strategies to steer the complex, rapid and controversial changes in
progress but also in defining the structural points around which to hinge
the actions to change the role of the university system as a whole. 2




1
 Corresponding author.
2
 A process of analysis and rethinking on the role of the university in the development of the
territory and society has been underway in recent years in the country. By way of example see:
Nicola Martinelli, Michelangelo Savino, “Università/Città. Condizioni in evoluzione”, Territorio 73
(2015): 58-59; Michelangelo Savino, “Il ruolo dell’università nel processo di trasformazione sociale
dopo la crisi”, Territorio 73 (2015): 60-66; Stefano Boffo, Francesco Gagliardi, “Un nuovo
contenitore per i rapporti tra università e territorio”, Territorio 73 (2015): 67-72; Valeria Fedeli,
“Università-città-territorio in Italia: una relazione in trasformazione”, Territorio 73 (2015): 79-85;
Mariavaleria Mininni, Cristina Dicillo, “Politiche urbane e politiche culturali per Matera verso il
2019”, Territorio 73 (2015): 86-93; Nicola Martinelli, “Diritto allo studio e diritto di cittadinanza nel
rapporto università-città”, Territorio 73 (2015): 94-99. Michelangelo Savino, “Università, città,
studenti: aspetti complessi di interdipendenze non sempre note”, Archivio di studi urbani e
regionali 60-61 (1997): 13-84.


                                                                              Copyright 2024 The Author(s)
                                                          This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
                                                                      Attribution 4.0 International License

    https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-8544/16764
                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   120



2.     The Project and the Theme.

Starting from this premise, which animated the entire structure of the
“Puglia Regione Universitaria” project, the survey carried out under the
theme “The Role of the University System in Urban and Youth Cultural
Policies” aimed at developing an initial framework of knowledge of
cultural resources at Apulian universities.
To date, there are no comprehensive studies that provide a mapping of
the cultural resources available in Apulia for the university and urban
communities. Therefore, assessing the accessibility to these resources,
their quality and effectiveness becomes essential to understanding the
extent to which university and urban educational and cultural offerings
are in dialogue with each other.

3.     The Survey.

The investigation focused on the direct and active role that the academic
institutions play in generating and promoting resources in various
cultural compartments in order to estimate their ability to involve
students in the processes of organization, management and creation, and
their impact on the urban cultural scene and their permeability to
citizenship.
The survey covered the facilities for both use and production of culture in
each of the five Apulian universities (University of Bari, Bari Polytechnic,
University of Foggia, University of Salento with its related sites in Brindisi
and Taranto, Free Mediterranean University "Giuseppe Degennaro"-
LUM). The survey has led to build a list of the academic resources and
facilities for use and production of culture (museums, libraries, archives)
and for cultural events (cinema, theater, music and audiovisuals, art and
creativity, journalism and scientific popularization), and a questionnaire
was delivered to the managers and other contact people involved in
academic systems.
The survey aimed to outline the profile of the facilities, their rootedness
in the university life and their organization and functioning in terms of
funds, attendance, opening hours, activities and staff; it attempted to
better identify the public that use and attend them, the degree of
involvement of students in the activities, and the very nature of their
efforts, whether educational, professionalizing or aimed at fostering
youth entrepreneurship. Along these lines communication strategies and
tools, their intensity and effectiveness were explored as well as the
readiness to hold events aimed at building a community around the
facility, whether made up of university students whether external.
Finally, the survey was directed to acquire elements describing the
openness towards urban reality in terms of collaborations established by
the facilities with other urban structures—museums, libraries, archives,
publishing houses, bookstores, associations, etc.—and with events
engaged in the dissemination and promotion of culture like exhibitions
                                                            URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           121



and festivals—“Notte bianca dei Musei”, “Notte dei ricercatori”, “Il libro
possibile”, “Lector in fabula”, “Bifest”, “Festival del cinema Europeo” etc.
Other data were collected in terms of patronage offered to external events
and of relations with schools and other educational institutions in the city
and in terms of students discounts for museums, bookstores or major
cultural events held by the city.The final section of the questionnaire was
devoted to acquiring data on past activities carried out by the facilities, to
assess their performance compared to the past and to acquire data on
successful events whose memory has been lost. The preliminary survey
revealed that cultural facilities are mainly departmental libraries,
university museums, archives and some other multi-institutional/extra-
institutional entities rooted in the academic world (study centers,
academies, excellence centers, etc.). The following pages summarize the
common trends that have emerged in Apulia for an overall assessment of
the university-city system3. G.V.

3.1      Libraries.

University libraries are facilities for preservation, cataloguing and use for
research, teaching and cultural and scientific education.
Existent at all Apulian universities, they are the mostly stable and
entrenched institutions (many are over 20 years old: Figure 1); in the
larger and more structured universities, they are organized as library
hubs, divided into departmental macro-areas, and managed by an
Athenaeum Library System (SiBA or SBA, present at the Bari Polytechnic
and the Universities of Bari, Foggia and Salento) for the coordination and
management of the activities of institutional cultural facilities with
similar functions and purposes.
Most of these facilities work essentially for the academic community;
absent or occasional is the component related to schools and very
sporadic is that related to the urban community [Figure 2]. Libraries are
mostly open for 15 to 30 hours a week, a rather reduced range as pointed
out extensively by students in the survey [Figure 3]. It is no coincidence
that the libraries with the liveliest attendance 4 and a growth in terms of
attendance of more than 50 percent are those that have renewed
themselves in terms of available space and organization and that offer
extended opening hours.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that the digitization of repositories
in the late 1990s -the most significant event for these facilities in the past
25 years- has enabled a more immediate access to bibliographic resources
as well as the activation of new nationwide network library services.


3
  A more analytical view of the results obtained that returns the specific relationship established
by each university with its city is deferred to another discussion.
4
  See, for example, the Library of Economics, Management and Business Law - Corporate Area of
the Economic Pole, in University of Bari, where over 10,000 visitors are registered in a year,
compared to other structures in the same area which register a maximum of 300.
                                                             URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024            122



In terms of functioning, the most observed phenomenon over the past 10
years is the steady reduction in structured staffing which, along with the
lack of space, is listed as one of the primary causes of malfunction 5 that
blocks the possibility of extending and better characterizing the functions
of libraries towards wider communities. It is in relation to this fragility
that the data on the almost total absence of communication strategies
should probably be read (Figure 4: only few facilities use digital means,
often scarcely effective such as mailing lists and old-fashioned web pages)
and so the lack of broader content or events aimed at schools or at the
city6. When staffed, university students are largely framed as civil service
volunteers and as trainees, rarely are they found framed with grants or
part-time contracts 7. What seems to emerge from the survey is how they
are mostly used as additional staff supporting existing staff, without
performing specific assignments or tasks. The deployment of spin-off
companies does not occur.

3.2      Museums.

University museums are facilities and services destined for the collection,
protection, enrichment, classification, enhancement, study and public
display of the historical, artistic, archaeological, scientific and
naturalistic heritage. Together with libraries, therefore, they are
designated for the research and dissemination of culture in the university
environment, but also open to the general public.
The university museums are organized in a coordinated system: the
Athenaeum Museum System (SIMA or SMA), is an institution that exists
at the universities of Bari and Salento that brings together eleven and
respectively eight museums by regulating collections, botanical gardens
and aquariums through special rules.
University museums look very different in terms of openness to the
community. They range from institutions well-established for more than
20 years to very young facilities founded in the last 5 years [Figure 5]. The
museums of the University of Bari are mainly historical-scientific and
naturalistic, linked to the Interdepartmental Service Center for Scientific
Museology (CISMUS), connected with the science laboratories and
dedicated to gathering and protecting collections. The origin and nature
of a part of the museums of the university of Bari is not such as to welcome
the external community but to preserve specialized materials or

5
  At Bari Polytechnic there is a sharp reduction in libraries. The libraries of six departments have
been merged due to lack of personnel and of space.
6
  The survey shows that as opposed to the common trend described above, the only exceptions
are some libraries (in Bari, Foggia and Salento), which are organized as places that are open to
the community, interacting with schools, museums, festivals, city associations and other cultural
venues in the area, and participating in or organizing cultural initiatives. Of particular interest is
the activity of the University of Salento's 3D SIBA Theater.
7
  The Bari Polytechnic Library System, on the other hand, tends to place students on part-time
contracts and uses internships much less. The audience is also more mixed and the general public
is more present.
                                                          URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024          123



instrumentation and to help the historical-scientific education of
university students in specific subjects.8
Some museums, however, have developed a didactic-disseminative
competence to relate to the urban community and other audiences,
particularly schools. The targeted and functional use of social networks,
the presence of an entrance fee, a more intense organization of events,
exhibitions, festivals and affiliations with schools, departments or
external entities, and the collaboration established with other structures
of the city's cultural scene seem to demonstrate, in some cases, more
advanced management [Figure 5].9
The Salento University museums, which are more balanced between the
humanities and the sciences than those in Bari, are generally more open
to the urban community, and endowed with a greater educational
vocation, particularly toward the world of education 10. The public, on
average more numerous, is mostly made up of students, schoolteachers
and outsiders, as a result of greater attention to communication strategies
and a more intense collaboration network with other SMA and city
museums and with events and festivals of the cultural scene in Lecce. For
all the museums, the survey clearly highlighted the problems associated
with the temporary closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of
weakening and rarefaction of collaborative relationships with the city's
various cultural institutions, which slowed down and affected their
normal functioning.
As for libraries, the survey reveals a poor integration of university
students in staff, who are employed in the structures as interns, but are
rarely hired with scholarships or collaboration contracts [Figure 6].

3.3      Archives.

University archives in the universities of Bari and Foggia 11 are facilities
dedicated to the preservation and consultation for study purposes of the
documentary heritage of historical, administrative, iconographic,
cartographic, epigraphic and ethnographic nature, but they do not see
themselves as places frequented and open to the community, if not on
rare occasions, such as extraordinary events.


8
   These aspects exist, for example, in the Museum of Psychology and Psychotechnology, the
Museum of Commodities, the Museum of Entomology and the Computer Science Department
Collection.
9
  These aspects exist, for example, in the Museum of Earth Sciences and the Botanical Garden
Museum.
10
    These aspects exist, for example, in the “Pietro Parenzan” Marine Biology Museum, the
Historical-Archaeological Museum (MUSA), the Widespread Museum of Cavallino which is the
only case in which recourse is made to a university spin-off company (ARVA, “Archeologia
Ricerca e Valorizzazione”).
11
    In addition there are the Multimedia Archive “Itinerari Bizantini Puglia-Albania” and the
Electronic Archive Photo Library of Rock Iconography - Apulia Region of the University of
Salento, which as electronic archives are accessible telematically for consultation of multimedia
resources but have no physical locations.
                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   124



3.4    Other Facilities.

In order to complete the picture of universities’ cultural facilities there
are other cultural entities, such as study centers, centers of excellence
and academies, which originated within the University of Bari but are
marked by a sharper transversality between university and city. They
offer a much more distinct and systematic openness to the citizenry and
experiment with innovative approaches to cultural resources that involve
significant input from creative entrepreneurship.
Although they present very different characteristics, they have some
significant aspects in common: they rely on multiple funds (public and
private); they develop a structured communication strategy based on a
specific investment of resources and on regular content publishing; they
interact in a systematic way with urban cultural institutions that are not
related to the cities; they participate, organize or host events, exhibitions,
festivals and initiatives aimed at schools or citizens that cross-culturally
include multiple cultural sectors. The field of science popularization
dominates and is complemented by literary, cinematographic, theatrical
and artistic initiatives.
This aspect can be related to some recurring observations made by the
contact persons of the universities’ various cultural facilities, even those
less open to the public, such as some departmental libraries and
university archives: the organization of or sponsorship to festivals and
“notti bianche”, the extraordinary collective openings and the planning
of systematic relationships with school communities are to be considered
among the most valuable activities because they constitute the only
opportunities to give visibility to the facilities and to open them to the
general public.
In summary, the questionnaires administered to the facilities' contact
persons clearly reveal the weaknesses of the universities’ cultural
facilities: occasionally underrepresented are the external public and
students who are not university students; the majority does not have a
social profile, nor a specific contact person for the publication of social
content, does not offer specific content for different audiences and
groups and are not in close contact with the city's institutions and
resources for a common strategy of promoting culture. Cultural facilities
of universities are frequented by university students, but rarely involve
them with active and continuative roles.

3.5     Events.

The survey has also led to the identification of the few but active facilities
in each university that promote cultural events—cinema, theater, music
and audiovisuals, art and creativity, journalism and scientific
popularization—. In general, these are not linked to specific university
institutions, but rather to spontaneous cultural activities of specific
courses and departments. In some cases, the activities are promoted by
                                                            URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           125



centers—the CUTAMC at the university of Bari, the CUT at the university
of Foggia and Salento—, film clubs affiliated with private city foundations
or by cultural associations or university spin-off.
Data from the questionnaire administered to the respective contact
persons further articulate the picture of cultural resources of Apulian
universities. The survey aimed to focus, in qualitative and quantitative
terms, on the nature of cultural activities—popularization of science,
theater, film or audiovisual sector, art, music, radio—, the type of events
—meetings or reviews, festivals, productions—, the existence of
associations or companies established within the university context, the
audience, the role of students in the events, be it simple
participation/adhesion       or     active    organization,     production,
communication or artistic direction, the employment relationship—
simple students, trainees, scholarship holders, contract workers—and the
possible activation of start-ups or university spin-offs.
The survey also aimed to acquire elements describing the relationships
established between universities and cities in terms of the activation of
affiliations and collaborations for cultural activities with facilities,
associations, festivals and so on.
The acquired data show a similar scenario in the universities of Salento,
Foggia and, partially, Bari, characterized by a few but very active
institutions, capable of triggering a virtuous circle of cultural initiatives
across different cultural fields—with a predominance of initiatives in
popularization and in the film sector—, and of involving universities,
schools and citizenries in the framework of festivals, meetings and
special events. The percentage of students in the audience is constant,
and in several cases within the organization, less often in the
management, but almost never in the production. The organization of
events has very good feedback on the urban population because very
often they arise from a network of collaborative relationships with local
authorities and other urban cultural entities, such as city associations,
which strongly connote the cultural life of Apulian university towns,
foundations, theaters, festivals and creative companies.
Few but effective institutions have encouraged the birth of university
spin-offs and cultural associations such as film clubs that offer the
citizenry a cultural resource run by university students entirely free of
charge12, in particular established between universities and small cities as
in the cases of the universities of Foggia and Salento.




12
  Of note at the University of Salento, in addition to the many cultural activities that revolve
around the Laboratory and the SIBA 3D Theater, is the activity of ESE Salento University
Publishing, an Open Access service of the University of Salento that publishes journals, series and
proceedings which allows wide dissemination of the results of the University of Salento's scientific
research both in the national and international academic community and free access even by
ordinary scholars and enthusiasts. ESE also publishes an Open Access Teaching Series that makes
the teaching texts adopted by faculty members available to students.
                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   126



3.6     Students.

In line with the principles of the Faro Convention that emphasizes the
perception of communities towards cultural resources, the core of the
study was based on the involvement of students in the issues of
participation and cultural animation in university life. By administering
a questionnaire to a selected sample of students, conducting several
interviews and organizing functional meetings for comparison, a
qualitative survey was carried out involving all the student associations,
centers and representatives in Apulia that are sensitive to the issue of
culture and the impact that universities have in youth cultural policies
and in offering and facilitating university and city cultural life in general.
The view offered by students is quite critical. Museums and university
archives are very little known and frequented, libraries are more so but
exclusively used for study purposes [Figure 7].
This occurs in the context of a sample of students who frequent the
cultural venues offered by their urban context in very high percentages:
first and foremost, cinemas, bookstores, music clubs, theaters, museums,
libraries, art galleries, cultural associations and archives, and who also
frequent these places in other Italian cities and abroad, with a very clear
prevalence, in this case, of museums and exhibitions. To cultural venues
of Apulian universities, students first and foremost impute limited access
hours and ineffective communication strategies [Figure 8], to which they
add inadequate facilities, failure to update content, and insufficient and
not fully qualified staff. Even simple attendance in events such as
meetings or festivals organized at universities in any cultural sector—with
a partial exception regarding the organization of cultural debates and
popularization meetings—is very low. The involvement of students in
cultural events and facilities rarely occurs through internships,
traineeships or part-time contracts, an aspect that is also reflected in the
university's lack of ability to entrust students with an active role in
organizing and animating cultural life with the exception of a small but
encouraged percentage of students are directly involved in organizing
cultural events, particularly at the University of Salento. A small
percentage of active students also continue to get involved in cultural
associations of cities (that deal with particularly heartfelt issues such as
social, political and current affairs: gender issues, environmental
sustainability, promotion of the territory, but also music and cinema. A
grassroot movement experienced in total autonomy: in fact, universities
rarely collaborate with cultural associations. The free content fields
provided in the questionnaire were extensively used by students to give
their views and make suggestions. Together with some face-to-face
discussions, the answers served as an essential basis for the construction
of the proposals presented below.

3.7     Notes and Proposals for an Agenda.
                                                URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024    127



The critical points that have emerged from the survey of university
facilities and events, as seen from the perspective of contact persons and
students who are active and sensitive to university cultural life, tend to
converge on some recurring elements.
Beginning with the goal of enhancing cultural resources of universities
for the community and to facilitate a process of integration, the essential
aspects identified (see Figure 9 as a summary), on which action needs to
be taken are:
• the strengthening and broadening of the audience reached by cultural
    initiatives of universities, both in terms of the 'internal' community -
    that is, the ability of the university population itself to recognize itself
    as a community-, and in terms of the 'external' community -the ability
    to attract citizenship to itself through three lines (technology transfer,
    lifelong learning, social education) that connote the third mission of
    the universities. Here the improvement of communication strategies
    plays an essential role.
• The strengthening of university coordination. Closely related to the
    previous point, with reference to building a community 'within' the
    university, the need to coordinate initiatives and to optimize the
    management of cultural venues and events around which the
    community could gather emerges. This strategy aims to implement
    participation, pushes for the initiation of working methods that
    overcome the fragmented, competitive and individualistic dimension
    prevalent in the academy and encourages networking, projects and
    sharing ideas and the integration of cultural experiences with out-of-
    town or Erasmus students.
• Improving the effectiveness of the collaborative network between
    different urban actors—universities, local authorities, cultural venues
    and/or city associations—to extend and coordinate cultural initiatives
    by integrating university and city resources, creating exchange and
    coherence between urban and university offerings. The creation of
    'hybrid' facilities and experiences can trigger important opportunities
    for encounters.
• A direct consequence of the previous points is the commitment to
    foster youth employment and entrepreneurship in the urban cultural
    and creative industry. The agreement between institutions and urban
    cultural actors must encourage the increase of the participation of
    students in the processes of organization and management of cultural
    initiatives of universities and cities and foster the creation of
    employment opportunities of cultural workers trained at Apulian
    universities.
Several concrete proposals for actions to improve existing resources were
then developed around these macro-areas of intervention:
• the extension of the opening hours of university facilities, to improve
    and broaden their use as places for studying but also for meeting and
    sharing.
                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   128



•  the activation of audience monitoring systems in cultural venues of
   universities—ticketing/online booking systems/etc.—for audience
   profiling and enhancing participation strategies;
• the organization of training seminars to upskill staff in terms of
   communication;
• the intensification of agreements between university and cultural
   venues of cities.
Similarly, some concrete proposals for innovation actions could be
envisioned:
• the recruitment of competent and dedicated individuals specifically to
   improve communication strategies that enhance the university's many
   cultural resources;
• the creation of student-run multi-purpose spaces to foster gathering,
   discussion and sharing of creative energies;
• agreements with one or more of the city's venues like cinema-theaters
   to encourage the gathering of the university community in the
   broadest sense of the term, to stimulate the systematic planning and
   organization of events with the direct involvement of students, but also
   to gather the vibrant but parcelled out cultural activities of universities
   in one physical place for the benefit of the urban community;
• the establishment of a Cultural Steering Committee with mixed faculty
   and student members within the university entities to foster the
   planning of cultural events from a shared perspective;
• the organization of an annual regional festival aggregating cultural
   components of universities and cities.

4.     Beautiful minds. A Regional Festival as a First Action for Change?

In particular, the proposal for a regional festival, which has attracted the
specific interest of the scientific leaders of the Puglia Regione
Universitaria project, could be an excellent factory to initiate some of the
points described in the agenda that would act as a trigger for the desired
changes.
Why a Festival? A festival is a central element in Italian cultural life, an
image of cheerful but demanding participation of communities. It fills the
public spaces of the city, it is a collective ritual of sharing an in-depth
experience, built around a theme. It is a practice of active citizenship,
capable, because of its immediacy, of quickly building a community. A
festival facilitates the contamination between culture and creativity, in an
experimental and multidisciplinary dimension that is more difficult in
more connoted cultural contexts. In addition, festivals are an important
tool for economic-entrepreneurial growth: among curators, artistic
directors, and restaurateurs, Confcommercio declares that in 2018 the
festival and cultural events sector employed 99,000 people. Ultimately, a
                                                                URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024              129



festival is an event capable of determining a very significant socio-
cultural impact 13.
The essential idea behind Beautiful minds- University Festival of
Communities and Participation is that universities and territorial entities
act as a hinge between academic research and the world of cultural
entrepreneurship (museums and exhibitions, communication for
cultural heritage, publishing, journalism, theater, cinema, music,
performing arts), starting with the resources of the territory (associations,
foundations, companies, other festivals) but with external 'guests' who
would be invited from year to year (universities of excellence in the
university-city-business relationship; entrepreneurs who nationally
invest in the cultural sector). Each year the festival could revolve around
a theme, an inspiration of general and cross-cultural interest that spans
multiple cultural fields, linking humanities and sciences.
Students would be placed at the center of the planning and management
of all events. Student activities would be included in the calculation of
credits, and the initiation of forms of remuneration for coordination,
greater commitment and responsibility, based on funding and agreement
between the university, institutions and businesses would be essential.
In the occasion of the festival, opportunities for internships, part-time
and fixed-term contracts at cultural venues in the city and the territory
should be initiated.
The events would be consistent with the chosen in-depth theme, open to
the whole citizenry, at an affordable entrance fee, season tickets, the
possibility of payment by faculty card, etc.
Basically, the idea is to combine the single experience of entertainment
and cultural dissemination with in-depth study through open lectures and
discussions among different urban players.
Festival venues would be diverse, with some crossroads: selected
university spaces, new or old city premises. City theater-cinemas would
serve as crossroads for selected events. The basic idea is the hybridization
of places, that is, bringing unusual recreational moments to traditional
university facilities or bringing lectures, meetings and discussions to
theaters. Finally, it should be emphasized that the success of the event
will depend above all on the ability to shape, integrate and coordinate
cultural events and initiatives that already exist for the most part, but are
‘atomized’ and unable to coagulate. The unity of purpose among different
urban players will contribute to enhancing the existing network, giving it
new meaning to offer to the Apulian community as a whole.




13
  Giulia Alonzo, Oliviero Ponte di Pino, In giro per festival. Guida nomade agli eventi culturali.
Festival di pensiero, letteratura, musica, teatro, cinema e arte in Italia (Milan: ed. Altreconomia, 2022),
9-15.
                                                          URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024             130




    Figure 1| Survey of years of libraries in Apulian universities (graph from Google Forms).
                                        Credits: Velia Polito.




Figure 2| Summary on the characterization of library patrons in Apulian universities (graph from
                                       Google Forms).
                                     Credits: Velia Polito.
                                                         URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024            131




Figure 3| Graphic summary regarding the opening hours of Apulian universities (from Google
                                         Forms).
                                  Credits: Velia Polito.




   Figure 4| Survey of social use in libraries of Apulian universities (from Google Forms).
                                      Credits: Velia Polito.
                                                       URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024          132




Figure 5| Survey of years of life and social use in Apulian university museums (from Google
                                            Forms).
                                     Credits: Velia Polito.
                                                    URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024            133




Figure 6| Survey of student framing in Apulian university museums (from Google Forms).
                                  Credits: Velia Polito.
                                                       URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024         134




Figure 7| Survey on students' knowledge and attendance of university cultural venues (from
                                     Google Forms).
                                   Credits: Velia Polito.




Figure 8| Survey on students' knowledge and attendance of university cultural venues (from
                                     Google Forms).
                                   Credits: Velia Polito.
                                                      URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           135




   Figure 9| Graphic summary comparing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
                               (elaboration by Velia Polito).
                                   Credits: Velia Polito.

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Boffo, Stefano and Gagliardi, Francesco. “Un nuovo contenitore per i
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Fedeli, Valeria. “Università-città-territorio in Italia: una relazione in
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Martinelli, Nicola and Savino, Michelangelo.                         “Università/Città.
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Mininni, Mariavaleria and Dicillo, Cristina. “Politiche urbane e politiche
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Savino, Michelangelo. “Il ruolo dell’università nel processo di
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