One hundred and fifty years of Italian history accessible with a click: the new digital display case of the Central State Archive is online, which represents the first real achievement of the digital age of the institution that preserves the historical-documentary memory of the nation. The digital library provides access to a total of approximately 2,500,000 images. Using it, it is possible to browse and search 1,500 inventories, which can be queried word by word thanks to digitization with the hOCR standard, access more than 50,000 photographs, 150,000 files, 100,000 documents and thousands of technical drawings, posters and registers. By simplifying access to documentation and related information, the digital display promotes social inclusion, the development of knowledge, creativity and curiosity, and is therefore a tool for overcoming cultural, physical and cognitive barriers.
The project will be presented on Wednesday 1 March during the conference entitled “From chaos to cosmos: the new digital display case of the Central State Archive”, which will be attended by illustrious names from the archival community. The latest generation platform, by enhancing and simplifying access to digital collections, is a concrete response to the needs of male and female researchers, who can access the heritage from every corner of Italy and the world.
“Enhancing access to sources was one of the priorities to be implemented quickly – explains the general manager and superintendent Andrea De Pasquale – From today, thanks to the massive digitization project launched in 2022, thousands of contents are freely usable, regardless of skills and technological tools.The Digital library in fact simplifies access to documentation and related information, promotes social inclusion, the development of knowledge, creativity and curiosity, and is therefore a tool for overcoming cultural barriers physical and cognitive”.
Since the first migration of digital contents, which took place in July 2022, the Digital Library has been further enriched with highly relevant documentation, coming from the Official Collection of State laws and decrees (75,000 regulatory texts from the period 1861-1932), from the archives of the ‘Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (about 60,000 documents), 1,500,000 images from the archive of the Allied Control Commission (Acc), from the archives of architects such as Luigi Moretti and Armando Brasini, from the registers of Italian military internees in Germany during the second world war.
Students, researchers, enthusiasts or simply curious, by choosing a topic, a fund, a producer subject or a historical period, can search, view, download and reuse for study and research purposes, all the digitized documentation. The documents, photographs and posters are published in the IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) interoperable format, which allows both sharing in wider contexts and the use of the platform’s innovative potential.
By subscribing, it is in fact possible to save one’s research path on personalized lists, or to build “stories” through which to tell and relate documents, archival funds, research experiences. The Digital library is also connected to the Archival Information System and to the Study Room Guide to the Funds – fundamental research tools for knowing the entire preserved heritage, even the non-digitized – providing all the elements of context and facilitating research and booking directly from home, even of the documentation that has not yet been digitized and which can only be consulted on site.
By the end of 2023, the Teca will expand with a thematic itinerary dedicated to Made in Italy. Alongside the 160,000 Italian brands already available online, thousands of patent documents of Italian fashion, technology and design, drawings from the Bertone Style Archive, photographs from the collection of the Directorate General for Antiquities and Fine Arts, papers from archaeologists Edoardo and Guglielmo Gatti.
From 2024, documents, projects and photographs relating to Italian cinemas will also be published online, and the digitization of the Official Collection of State laws and decrees will also be completed, including its important annexes, such as the master plans of the Italian territory.