Umberto Eco’s Biblioteca di Alessandria: The Inner and Outer Exiles of Libraries.

This article examines Umberto Eco's 1977 self-experiment in the Biblioteca Civica di Alessandria, Piedmont, to explore the concept of libraries as spaces of exile—both "inner" and "outer." Eco's study demonstrated that even a small provincial library, despite its limited holdings, can support meaningful scholarly research, embodying a "library in exile" that implicitly references the mythical, all-encompassing lost Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The article situates this notion within Mediterranean monotheistic traditions, where every book and library metaphorically reflects exile and incompleteness, yet this very lack fosters the production of new knowledge. It also highlights Eco's advocacy for open, accessible "loose spaces" in libraries that encourage chance encounters with books and people, contrasting this with contemporary trends toward restricted access, surveillance, and commercialization of library spaces, which the author terms "inner exile." The discussion connects these developments to broader cultural and historical dynamics affecting libraries' social functions and their evolving role in knowledge production.