JLIS.it

On the edge of knowledge

Editorial board — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

JLIS.it puts the organization of knowledge at the centre of its interests. Indeed, one can go so far as to say that the study of knowledge management processes as a whole best represents the focal point of our journal's scientific objectives. On the other hand, if we look at archival description as a complicated process of collecting, organizing and processing the information necessary to promote the knowledge and use of archival material, we recognise that it is a process of knowledge management and interpretation. Indeed, if we go beyond the perhaps somewhat breathless perimeters of a consolidated technical vocabulary, describing an archive means processing and transmitting codified information. This particular knowledge domain is also fed by data conveyed by increasingly changing objects such as documents and it is therefore as dynamic and multifaceted as its objects of study. Archival tools, in their typological and informative multiplicity, are in turn the most effective synthesis of archival work, especially when dealing with the world of historical archives. For these reasons it was deemed appropriate and useful to dedicate the present issue of JLIS.it to archival mediation as a peculiar form of knowledge management and to the tools through which it manifests itself. The essays making up the issue derive in almost all cases from the works of the AIDUSA conference Research on the border. Archival tools between production, dematerialization and continuity of use, held in Rome on 13 and 14 October 2022.

Not the institutions but the subjects matter. Beyond the necessary approximation of finding aids?

Federico Valacchi — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes the archival tools’ historical, scientific, and cultural dimensions and their underlying techniques. The aim is then to identify the ways in which it could be possible to go beyond the inevitable approximation of the information in the inventories, going toward research developed not only on metadata but also, and above all, on the data of individual documents.

Archival science and research tools: methodological aspects from the beginnings of the historical method to standards

Stefano Moscadelli — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Although the creation of archives is a phenomenon innate in the organization of every social system, the full growth of the discipline that examines their features and purposes is found only in the contemporary era and goes hand in hand with the formation of precise historiographic periods. From that point of view, archival work is not typified anymore by merely administrative “writing”, but by the production of research instruments and means of cultural communication, that is, “history books”.

Drawing up the inventory in municipalities between heritage and cultural needs

Dimitri Brunetti — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The paper aims to illustrate how, between the 19th and 20th centuries, the practice of archival inventory was established even in Italian municipalities, in relation to the calls of the Ministry of the Interior, the indications of a developing discipline and professional manuals exemplifying practices and models. Through the use of diagrams, we trace the development of the inventory in the local context, which initially has a patrimonial connotation, but gradually takes on a cultural function.

Research tools between print and digital publishing: not opposition but integration

Antonella Mulè — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the field of archival publishing, the transition phase in which the relationship between print and digital was in contrast is considered closed and it’s time to move towards a new model of integration. It would be time to start a more mature reflection, in the perspective of imagining a dialectical relationship, not of contrast but capable of overcoming indifference in view of a fruitful integration. For this purpose, this paper provides some ideas and some proposals for work, in the hope that the academic world, Anai and Directorate General Archives will start in collaboration shared work.

The Invenire series: why continue to print archival inventories?

Giorgetta Bonfiglio-Dosio — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The author explains the scientific reasons for the decision to create an editorial series dedicated to the printed publication of archival descriptive tools.

Archival inventories as a profession

Lorenzo Pezzica — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The archival inventory is the highest expression of archival work. It is the most complex and articulated finding aid. To write an archival inventory, it is necessary to deeply understand records in the archive and its creator. The arrangement that is painstakingly achieved through a reordering and inventorying intervention, and then presented in the form of an archival inventory, can be read not so much as a descriptive axiom, but as an open threshold to potential new universes largely unexpressed. In other words, the inventory can only be thought of as the beginning and not the end of an archival practice.

Document as a multifaceted knowledge object

Roberto Guarasci — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The definition of document and its evolution over time and within different disciplinary fields influences and determines norms, safeguarding and protection profiles and also disciplinary boundaries, without, to date, any adequate theoretical reflection and any universally accepted semantics. An attempt to define at the very least a state of the art represents the unavoidable condition towards the re-establishment of text and documentary disciplines within an epistemic framework in the making. The terminological definition influences and determines the very concept of archive which, in a digital context, increases its innate polysemy and requires a deep conceptual redefinition.

From typewriter to bit: how finding aids evolve

Salvatore Vassallo — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail. But is it really so? Some thoughts on what determined the evolution of the finding aids, of the publication of archival databases on the web and of archival information systems. In this article we will analyze several of the solutions adopted during the time, trying to understand if these actually respond to the needs of the users of the archives.

The impact of GDPR on the access to archives and the creation of finding aids

Stefano Allegrezza — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Personal Data Protection Code, which has been updated to comply with the principles of the Regulation, have produced significant consequences with regard to the access to archives and the creation of finding aids, which must be subject to certain rules in order to comply with the principles laid down and avoid sanctions. Without claiming to be exhaustive, given the complexity and vastness of the topic, the proposed contribution aims to provide an overview of the situation on this issue, which is still in many ways little known, by offering some thoughts on the key principles of the GDPR and their application to the archival context of access and description.

Archival users and AI tools for reference and access: a study within the InterPARES Trust AI project

Pierluigi Feliciati — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Evaluating the effectiveness of search tools, the ease of use of the selection and display interfaces of archival descriptions and documents, and the satisfaction of end users are not everyday activities among archive service managers. A culture of quality should instead consider actual effectiveness, adopting a user-centred design and a systematic comparison with final users. Within the international project InterPARES Trust AI, focused on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on archival functions, specific studies have been activated on user access to archives and documents from the AI perspective. This contribution presents this project, its assumptions, objectives, and results and the first results of the study in Italy on users.

From institutional series to online inventories: what has changed in the Soprintendenza

Rossella Santolamazza — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the panorama of the institutions of the Italian Archival Administration, the Umbria Soprintendenza archivistica e bibliografica can certainly boast a primacy: its conspicuous editorial production that started in the late 1990s and composed by the series “Segni di civiltà” and “Scaffali senza polvere”, in addition to the many exhibition catalogs. To date, in SIUSA and the SAN Portal - Online Research Tools, there are over 500 inventories of Umbrian archives, more than a quarter of the national production. What path has been taken from printed volumes to downloadable pdfs and browsing archival description software?

Archival Finding Aids in Linked Open Data between description and interpretation

Francesca Tomasi — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Semantic Web in general, and the LOD in particular, suppose that the knowledge conveyed by documents must be adequately modeled and represented to produce reliable and trustworthy data. Following this statement, we understand that in the archival domain the tricky and subtle transition from the traditional methodologies for data description to Linked Open Data must be delegated to agents able to skilfully read the content of cultural objects. The Digital Hermeneutics model aims to propose a layered architecture that allows, beyond the descriptive specificities of each domain, to formalize the data transformation from the native system to LOD. The idea is to guarantee, through context information, that each moment of the transformation workflow is documented, finally strengthening the trust of the resultant dataset.

“Thinking about tools between archival science and history”. For a stratigraphical study of the structure of some relevant archives in Veneto, Trentino and Südtirol (14th-18th centuries)

Andrea Giorgi — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Nowadays, new technologies make it possible to restart the debate about the interpretation of the archival heritage on a deeper level than that outlined in the Guida generale degli archivi di Stato italiani. The debate should be taken up not only with regard to some aspects related to the preservation of archives, but rather for historical and archival-historical purposes. In fact, new technologies make it possible to conceive an effective rendering – on a ‘graphic’ and structural level, but also on a deeper conceptual level – of archival history research aimed at reconstructing the contexts in which the archives still available today have developed, making it possible to re-propose both the ‘production’ and ‘preservation’ phases and the subsequent ‘tradition’ phase, with particular reference to those passages that from the end of the Ancient Regime have brought them down to us and have handed them down to us. The recent study of the vicissitudes of some important archives in Veneto, Trentino and Südtirol areas makes it possible to read their structure stratigraphically and to reconstruct ‘virtually’ their order in different periods.

From chaos to cosmos

Andrea De Pasquale — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Italian Central State Archive has recently created a system, called the Digital Library, for the management and access to all its databases, to all digital or digitized inventories, as well as to all digital collections, created as part of previous projects or in progress with important new digitization campaigns. The contribution illustrates its structure, functions and prospects.

Historical-institutional paths through archival documents (and more)

Antonella Meniconi — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The history of institutions and archival science have been two closely related disciplines since their beginnings. With this article, we examine some paths in the history of institutions highly dependent on archival records that pertain mainly to the Italian history of the 1800s and 1900s, particularly the history of the judiciary and administration. For today's and the future situation concerning the preservation and use for historical purposes of digital sources, it is hoped that the common path between archivists and historians will know new developments, as, moreover, is already the case

Alberto Petrucciani. Un amico, un collega, un Maestro

Editorial Board — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In ricordo di Alberto Petrucciani