BESS (Electronic Library for the Social Sciences of Piedmont) aims to improve access to on-line biliographical and statistical resources available to students, faculty and research staff and to further inter-library cooperation in the field of economics and the social sciences in the Region of Piedmont.

By clicking on the link below Bess-Piemonte can be accessed from all of the University of Torino and Collegio Carlo Alberto computers, without using a login or password. To access the resources the proxy server must be configured locally (see instructions).

http://www.bess-piemonte.it

The libraries participating in BESS, (11 full partners plus the Turin Chamber of Commerce, an associate institution) pledge their resources, acquired through funding from the Compagnia di San Paolo, to establish a better standard of service for a wider public. The entire range of newly-developed services is offered in full respect of current Italian copyright laws and the conditions governing access to their collections set by each member libray.
BESS has produced a cooperative catalogue of full-text journals which permits fast and easy access to full-text articles of approximately 1000 journals, through a specifically designed Documet Delivery procedure. Document Delivery is set up as a basic and free-of-charge service offered by the partner libraries. BESS negotiates with publishers, aggregators, and information brokers purchase/access to electronic resources. Acquired resources are then shared by all the partners and offered to the public. The discipline-based acquisition policy strives to make the most out of the group's economies of scale. It builds upon the individual partners' specialisation and concentrates on the following three main areas: general economics, finance, industrial economics; social and political sciences; Italian, European and international law.