The Project • Study Rooms by Roma Capitale

The Rome Study Rooms Network is a project by Roma Capitale that connects a set of places throughout the city where you can study, read and spend time in peace. Free, accessible and open to all, the new study rooms are welcoming to everyone.

From the Historic Centre to the more outlying neighbourhoods, Roma Capitale is committed to redeveloping public spaces and enhancing local initiatives and cultural sites to create dedicated environments for students living in the city. The Network, constantly expanding, consists of both civic study rooms and federated study rooms and provides a service complementary to that offered by Biblioteche di Roma. On this website you can find all useful and up-to-date information about the study rooms in the Network.

Those who study look ahead, and so does Roma Capitale, which is working to ensure ever greater accessibility to spaces for study and reading, through a set of interventions aimed at modernising and expanding the range of cultural services offered to citizens.

The Rome Study Rooms Network was established by Resolution of the Capitoline Council no. 372/2023 on the proposal of the Department of Culture. The project’s objectives include greater openness of the city’s cultural institutions, Civic Museums and other spaces to the people of Rome, the regeneration of public heritage for purposes of general interest, as well as collaboration with local organisations to strengthen and make the presence of cultural services in the city more widespread. The involvement of a plurality of actors such as public administrations, cultural spaces, bookshops, associations and other organisations ensures a service distributed throughout the city. Roma Capitale has entrusted the coordination of the Rome Study Rooms Network to the Istituzione Sistema Biblioteche Centri Culturali (Libraries and Cultural Centres System Institution).

The concept of study room is linked to the idea of “third place” and differs from more traditional public reading and conservation libraries in that while the latter offer services related to the loan and consultation of a book collection, study rooms can be freely accessed for reading and studying.

Roma Capitale has entrusted the coordination of the Rome Study Rooms Network to the Istituzione Sistema Biblioteche Centri Culturali, which however directly manages only part of it, as the project was created with the aim of involving a plurality of actors such as public administrations, cultural spaces, bookshops, associations and other organisations so as to offer an increasingly widespread service across different neighbourhoods.

To join the Network, any operator of a study room – whether public or private – can enter into an agreement with the Istituzione Sistema Biblioteche Centri Culturali of Roma Capitale. Among the requirements are free access to study and reading workstations and toilet facilities for users.

Rome is the first city to establish a study rooms network, creating a model that can be adopted as a reference in other urban and metropolitan contexts.

The visual identity system of the Rome Study Rooms was created in collaboration with ISIA Roma Design. The website was developed in collaboration with 5A Design studio and Zètema Progetto Cultura, with the aim of bringing together service information for all spaces in one place.

The creation of this portal and the visual identity system of the Rome Study Rooms are part of the reading promotion project funded by the European Union Next Generation EU under the PNRR as Intangible Interventions of the Integrated Urban Plans M5C2-Investment 2.2, aimed at the outskirts of Metropolitan Cities for the enhancement of the areas called “Polo della solidarietà Corviale” – CUP J84D22000060001, “Polo del Benessere Santa Maria della Pietà” – CUP J89I22000180001, “Polo della Sostenibilità Tor Bella Monaca” – CUP J84F22000010001.

In particular, the creation of this website is part of the reading promotion activities within the Integrated Urban Plans – Tor Bella Monaca area, funded by the European Union Next Generation EU funds.