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The Central Institute for Archives: Commencement of activities

Daniela Grana
in English

The ICAR (Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi) has been required first and foremost in this initial phase of its institutional life to establish a by no means easy balance between the tasks it has been entrusted by parliament and the human and financial resources allocated at present. While awaiting the provision of organic resources making it possible to perform the broad and delicate tasks assigned by law (including “the definition of standards for the cataloguing and the formation of archives, study and research, and the application of new technologies”), the ICAR has therefore endeavoured in its programmes and activities to focus primarily on the SAN and SIAS information systems, regarded at present as the sector most “sensitive” and richest in significant repercussions for the archives administration as a whole. As those who take an interest in archival matters are well aware, the short acronym of the Sistema Archivistico Nazionale actually represents a complex and eagerly awaited effort to create a tool of knowledge, access and sharing for the Italian heritage of state and private archives, enabling each of the already existing information systems to play its part in making up a single overall mosaic.

After a long and lively debate to define the objectives of the SAN, a company was commissioned to carry out a feasibility study to ascertain whether and how its many and complex aims could be achieved.
The study has been completed and a call for tenders will be made shortly. Regardless of the technical solutions actually adopted, however, it is to be hoped that the SAN will foster the exchange of ideas and development of common working methodologies and instil an awareness in all the individuals involved that the cultural importance of their efforts is proportional to the possibility for everyone to obtain access and place the individual items of information in the broadest possible relational context. The SAN must therefore provide an indispensable service of orientation for users and a tool of connection based on the assumption that each archival description constitutes an element of a complex structure with a cultural significance proportional to the variety and richness of its relations and background information.
In this perspective, the system must help among other things to lay the foundations for an integrated knowledge system working together with the other systems in place in the cultural heritage sector. The definition of the organizational model and working methodologies must therefore involve an exchange of views not only between those operating in the archival sector but also with those operating in the field of cultural heritage as a whole and the library sector in particular.
To this end, the ICAR has embarked on close collaboration with the ICCU aimed at the joint formulation of standards capable of taking into account the peculiar features of the archival and library sectors while providing an opportunity for methodological convergence, especially in the case of digitization projects.
With a view to supporting this activity, a working group has been set up to develop guidelines for projects for the digital reproduction of archival series held in state archives. The members are Paolo Buonora of the Rome State Archives, Pier Maurizio Della Porta of the Perugia State Archives, Francesca Klein of the Florence State Archives and Mario Signori of the Milan State Archives.
As regards the SIAS (Sistema informativo degli Archivi di Stato), which covers 90 state archives, the ICAR has worked not only to consolidate the results achieved so far but also and above all to develop the aspects of archival description.
The modular structure of the SIAS has made further developments of the system possible. The STRUMENTI DI RICERCA module for the bibliographical description of background elements connected with an archival unit or section thereof has been combined with an INVENTARIO module for the direct creation in electronic form of finding aids of different types and levels of depth. The creation of two specialized descriptive units embedded in the INVENTARIO module, one devoted to items on parchment and the other to seals, will make it possible to attain levels of considerable analytic depth with standardized methodologies of description and to produce tools accessible online through the same interface.
In connection with its responsibilities for studying and developing archival methodologies of description, the ICAR has produced three online manuals that guide users of the system step by step in its application and at the same time provide specific and detailed models of archival description in line with the international standards.
With these new tools, the ICAR intends to act as a driving force for the planning and performance of major archival operations, providing archivists with effective technical and scientific support that will also stimulate them to address particular and specialized types of material.
It is again in this connection that work is underway on a module with associated manual devoted to the description of cartographic and cadastral series, the planning of which has been entrusted to a special committee composed of Carlo Vivoli, director of the Pistoia State Archives, who acts as coordinator, Gregorio Angelini, inspector with the RIO Department, Mario Signori of the Milan State Archives, Isabella Massabò Ricci, director of the Turin State Archives, and Grazia Tatò, director of the Trieste State Archives. In addition to the definition and piloting of criteria for the description of cartographic material, the committee is also responsible for examining and assessing projects of cataloguing and digitization presented by state archives for the above-mentioned types of material.
The development of the information system has in fact proceeded parallel to work on the planning and financing of projects for the creation of finding aids presented by the state archives belonging to the SIAS. In this connection, an advisory committee has also been set up for the description of diplomatic fonds, items on parchment and seals. The members are Angela Lanconelli of the Rome State Archives, who also acts as coordinator, Maria Assunta Ceppari of the Siena State Archives, Rita Cosma, associate professor of historical-legal exegesis of Italian documents at the Special School for Archivists and Librarians of La Sapienza University of Rome, Pierluigi Feliciati of the ICAR, Monsignor Aldo Martini, conservator of seals at the Vatican Archives, Stefania Ricci of the ICAR, and Claudio Torrisi, director of the Palermo State Archives.
The two committees provide support for the existing SIAS scientific committee, which serves as the scientific point of reference for the maintenance and development of the system.
Again in connection with the SIAS, the requirements of archives as regards more effective and rational computerized management of reading room facilities have also prompted the creation of a special module that can be connected organically with the descriptive system so as to monitor and control all the phases of activity, record the search operations carried out, and print periodical reports while at the same time allowing scholars to carry out research on the SIAS, select and book the archival units they wish to consult, and ascertain their accessibility.
 
The project for a portal devoted to the history of the Italian people, developed in collaboration with the Cosenza State Archives, is finally about to get underway. This will make it possible to find, view and obtain online information about the population drawn from demographic sources. The initial phase will involve the creation of a database of information and images of records of births, marriages and deaths and military service held in the Cosenza State Archives, serving also as a prototype for future extension to the other Italian state archives.

Fondazione Ansaldo