Biblioteche di Scienze Umanistiche
Much of the material is "open shelf", directly accessible by the user. However, in order to reduce waiting times for the material in the warehouse, it is advisable to book the loan and also consult the books. You can do this by sending an email to the library: biblioteca.dfe@unito.it, indicating exactly author, title, location; or by selecting the "loan request" option (also for consultation) directly from electronic catalogue.
The new headquarters of DFE Library of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, financed with funds assigned to the Department as a Department of Excellence and inaugurated in September 2021 with a first core of collections, sees the merger of two initially separate collections: that of the Philosophy Library and that of the Educational Sciences Library. In November 2025 the library expanded, completing the merger of the collections and increasing the number of seats.
A bit of history:
The library of Philosophy dates back to the mid-seventies, with the merging of the library of the Institute of Philosophy of the Faculty of Teaching and that of Philosophy of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy - made up in turn of the books of the Institute of Philosophy of Augusto Guzzo (in via Po 18) and of the library of Nicola Abbagnano (of the so-called "Philosophy Seminar"). The birth of the Department of Philosophy involved the physical fusion of these two book collections with that which came from the Magisterium, and it was not just a union of an administrative nature: in fact, the History of Ancient Philosophy section curated by the professors originated. Giuseppe Cambiano and Luciana Repici; a section dedicated to medieval and Renaissance philosophy was established which was dealt with by prof. Carlo Colombero; the seventeenth-eighteenth century was entrusted to the prof. Ugo Bonanate together with the Philosophy of Religion; to the prof. Luigi Marino lived through the eighteenth century, with Romanticism and German culture up to the nineteenth century; the prof. Armando De Palma took care of contemporary philosophy in its relationship with science, linguistics, Anglo-American philosophy of language up to the twentieth century.
The library of Educational Sciences was formed around two nuclei:
- the Library of the Specialization Course for teachers, established in 1904 and started in 1907 at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy;
- the pedagogical section of the Philosophy Library of the Higher Institute of Teaching, established in 1923 and directed by prof. Nicola Terzaghi, Institute which later became the Faculty of Teaching in 1936.
The Pedagogy Institute that hosted it changed its name to the Department of Educational Sciences in 1992, to later become the Department of Educational and Training Sciences and from 2012 the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences (following the merger with the Department of Philosophy).
