The Study Centre and Communication Archive (CSAC) is a research centre of the University of Parma founded in 1968 by Professor Arturo Carlo Quintavalle. Right from the start, it concentrated on assembling a collection of fine art, photography, architectural drawings, design, fashion and graphics, as well as organizing exhibitions and publishing catalogues.
It’s the first public museum of photography in Italy. The mission is the conservation, cataloguing, study and promotion of photography, with a particular focus on the relationship between photography and other arts and the current technological transformations.
Library/archive specializing in the history and culture of women, collects the productions of the theory and practice of the feminist movement since the late 60s, and the testimony of the stages of the process of modernization of the country, marked by the struggles for the emancipation of women, magnificently documented by photographic archives.
The Italian Library of Women was founded in the late seventies as part of the Center for Documentation, Research and Initiative of Women, thanks to a project developed by the Association Orlando, an association of women active in research and politics, who wanted to found an autonomous institution to promote the culture of gender difference and the female public presence.