The Centre for documentation and research on the history of schoolbooks and children's literature – CESCO was created in 2004 to engage in historical-educational research into educational publishing and children's literature in Italy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Over time this field of study has attracted growing international interest, as evidenced by the important research conducted in France by Alain Choppin and the Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique of Paris, in Spain by Agustín Escolano and Bernat Garcia Sureda, in Greece by Christina Koulouri and Ekaterini Kylina Venturas, in Canada (Ontario and Quebec) by the research groups led by Yves Poirier and Paul Aubin, in Brazil by a group of historians of education at the University of Belo Horizonte. In recent years, also in Italy, there has been an interesting process of renewal of the research related to these issues.

Acting Director of the Centre is Roberto Sani, Full Professor in History of education, who is assisted by a Board, constituted by a group of full and associate professors, researchers and PhD students of the University of Macerata: Anna Ascenzi, Francesco Bartolini, Edoardo Bressan, Marta Brunelli, Luca Girotti, Juri Meda, Susanne Adina Meyer, Sofia Montecchiani, Valentino Minuto, Elisabetta Patrizi, Lucia Paciaroni, Luigiaurelio Pomante, Fabio Targhetta and Federico Valacchi.

The Centre avails itself of the work of an international scientific committee, which guarantees a network of excellence for essential collaboration with scholars operating in Italy and abroad, as well as the key liaison with other national and international research Centres: Alberto Barausse (University of Molise, Italy), Vitaly Bezrogov (Institute of Theory and History of Education of Moscow, Russia) Pino Boero (University of Genoa, Italy), Giorgio Chiosso (University of Turin, Italy), Agustín Escolano Benito (Universidad de Valladolid, Spain), Mariella Colin (Université de Caen, France), Simonetta Polenghi (Catholic University of Milan, Italy), Bernat Sureda Garcìa (Universitat de les Illes Baleares, Spain), Fang Weiping (Children’s Culture Institute of Zhejiang Normal University, China).