Headquarter Bracco
“Books help young people’s critical thinking and are a curb on fake news and manipulation.” With Diana Bracco they become a corporate asset. Since 1927.
The Bracco Group is one of the few Italian companies to boast a corporate library. Established in 2021 and inheriting a first structure created in the 1960s with the company’s then CRAL, the “Diana Bracco” Library has recently moved into a beautiful new space within the headquarters at Via Folli 50 in Lambrate. With more than three thousand volumes across a wide range of genres ‒ novels, essays, books for young readers and children ‒ the library promotes and encourages reading among employees and collaborators, offering a space, both physical and virtual, for reflection, leisure, and social interaction within the company. In 2024, loans reached 1,250. More than 250 employees are registered members of the library (32% men and 68% women). New technologies, including a digital catalog and an online newsletter, make the library accessible and contemporary. To further expand its offerings, a partnership has been activated with the City of Milan, allowing access to the entire collection of the 24 libraries of the Milan Library System, with requested volumes delivered directly to the company’s offices. “Books are effective antibodies against the thinning of thought,” says Diana Bracco, Chair and CEO of the Group. “Founding libraries is like building granaries and storing reserves against the winter of the spirit, as Marguerite Yourcenar wrote in Memoirs of Hadrian. And I would add that in the age of smartphones and artificial intelligence, educating young people to read has become an absolute priority ‒ because new technologies are all-encompassing and have a powerful impact on the social fabric, not always in a positive way.” In the same spirit, the efforts devoted to the restoration and cataloguing of Francesco Salata’s collection of historical volumes, making it accessible to the public.