The beating heart of the institute; a huge support to researchers, students, and academic staff; attentive, service-minded, and modest; careful, warm, and friendly. Everyone who knows her agrees with these characterizations. Janet Mente fully deserves a royal decoration for the exceptional way she has been carrying out her job as librarian of KNIR’s vast book collection since 1998 and, as an American, guarding a piece of Dutch academic culture in Rome.
As a token of our great appreciation for all she has done for the institute, we further honoured Janet with the publication of the bilingual English-Italian edition of Gaetano Volpi’s Various Considerations, Both Useful and Necessary, for Lovers of Good Books, Arranged in Alphabetical Order (1756), a unique testimony of eighteenth-century bibliophilia and an amusing read that forms a perfect match with Janet’s expertise and sense of humour.
Foto’s: Robin Oomkes