The Pole of CIHEAM Bari libraries was established, on its own initiative, in 2003 at the Library of the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute in order to create a consortium of libraries that could make more documentary resources available to users.
The founding principle was the participatory cataloguing of the documents of related libraries to ensure institutional collaboration between them. This is achieved through the publication of the online joint catalogue (OPAC- Open public access catalogue) and the sharing of tools to help the search and access to the documents.
The four following libraries are involved (in a single network) in the Pole:
- CIHEAM Bari Library
- CIHEAM Bari Organic Agriculture Library
- CIHEAM Bari Library Bibliomediateca del Mare - Tricase(LE)
The Pole enables wide interlibrary collaboration making available to teachers, researchers and students not only their catalogues but also the existing documents in all libraries across the entire national territory, through the Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan service.
Moreover, the Pole gives access to the online catalogues of the major sources of the international scientific literature, thus encouraging the increase in the respective library collections. Lastly, it promotes the organisation of cultural and promotional initiatives, either jointly or in partnership.