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The aim of this paper is to present some thoughts on the sidelines of the international conference "The privilege of the written word: management, conservation and enhancement of personal papers and books", held at Salerno University on April 10-12th 2019. The conference represented a significant moment of meeting for the scientific and professional community of archives and libraries in order to debate the issues related to conservation, management and valorization of personal collections. This event also provided an opportunity for the presentation of the 'Guidelines on the treatment of personal funds' edited by the National Commission of special libraries personal archives and libraries of the Italian Library Association (AIB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper first analyzes the complexity of the notion of the archival document, in its fundamental definition and its updates prompted by the shift to the digital dimension. It then sets out to consider – from a digital hermeneutic point of view – the notion of ‘document’ from the perspective of the information object and therefore of the intentional object. Finally, the paper discusses the ways in which the archive is a technological enhancement for the interrogability and ‘consultability’ of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, artists' archives have gained a central role in the debate on the nature, treatment and valorization of 20th century and contemporary archives. They are fascinating and precious aggregations, characterized by a plurality of documentary typologies and by specific requirements for their description. Starting from the definition of personal archives, the paper proposes a definition of artists' archives and then attempts to indicate their main characteristics, contents and elements of complexity. Finally, the paper attempts to establish a dialogue between archivists and artists, collectors, gallery owners, critics and curators in order to find common elements and differences in their actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important and not often addressed topic - considering the issues opened by cross-disciplinary projects - is the shared control of authority records, or better authority metadata, extended to other documentary and cultural heritage sciences. This paper will examine the potential opened by multi-dimensional and networked logics in the representation of entities in the form of data towards which the document communities are converging. This approach is even more valid if we consider the users' point of view, presently forced to jump from one information environment to another, and confront different names, forms and attributes for the same entities. The core entities to work on are persons, corporate bodies, places, chronological contexts, events, qualifying their relationships. After a brief resume of archival description's peculiarity, the paper highlights the updated standards available, mostly IFLA-LRM and RiC, precious documents to start from and stimulate an active collaboration. To facilitate the sharing, control, and enrichment of authority data in the form of RDF assertions, librarians and archivists may follow several pathways: matching the existing conceptual models, converging on a shared data playground like Wikidata, and developing foundational meta-ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nowadays world characterized by complexity, the digital systems for archival and bibliographic description are, especially in Italy, a faithful mirror of too many horizontal (among bodies with national functions) and vertical (among central and peripheral levels) complications. The integration of data sets conceived according to the up-to-date conceptual domain models would simplify the dynamics of representation, improve user experiences, and optimize the environmental costs of computing infrastructures. The concepts to be shared should relate to agents (individual or collective), places, and chronological data, deepening on how to address the more complex issues opened by things. This paper introduces three possible scenarios of semantic cooperation between archivists and librarians, not necessarily alternative: activating a conceptual matching through common entities, relying on a neutral semantic data infrastructure such as Wikidata, or, finally, developing a transversal core ontology. Hoping that disciplinary boundaries will not impede cooperation, two types of impediments must be considered: the organizational one (bottom-up, top-down, or a virtuous synergy between the two organizational models?) and the crucial issue of offering easy-to-use interfaces to end users, not only constituted by software agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to give a new definition of the word "Archives" as a result of an accurate survey of doctrinal orientations on this specific subject, analyzing - word by word - each particular lemma which makes up the new proposal. Even though there is no definition that is valid in every context, but archival theory seems to suffer largely from a heterogeneous vision, downstream of a rigorous scientific journey, but dense of conceptual and lexical unexpected contingencies. Each term - with meanings and contexts - does not constitute a simple signifier, but refers to a specific baggage of every disciplinary and cultural tradition. For these reasons, we will attempt to provide an overview of the definitions of archives, from the particular to the general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread use of social media in people's everyday life has set the basis for big changes in the relationships between individuals, public and private bodies on a global scale. With public administrations willing to adjust their identities to new tools for communication, archival organizations approached to social networks to connect with new users and enhance their heritage. This paper aims to define methods, specificities and limits of the Italian archival institutions' social media policies, opening up to a first comparison with other national strategies, especially with the French one. A special focus has been put on the role of social networks in March and April 2020, when Italian archives faced a two-month lockdown following the health emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19: moved away from the ordinary work, archivists and archival institutes were encouraged to start alternative forms of communication with their users, including a more effective social campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notarial archives in the early-modern Alpine region were managed according to an extreme variety of styles. This paper presents the case of a community of the central Italian Alps, set at the north-western borders of the Republic of Venice. Focusing on the local response to a law promulgated by the venetian Senate in 1612, notarial archives and their preservation become, in an "institutional perspective", a political weapon in defending local autonomies against the centripetal force exercised by urban cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to protection of confidentiality, involving any person mentioned in the documentation, is of great importance. The paper aims to outline the state of the art and to evaluate possible solutions for new improvements. The relationship between the rights of scientific research, the free expression of thought and the right to privacy of personal information are analyzed in legal terms, under Italian legislation, and in technological, just about the use of the technologies of the digital reproduction of documents, with particular attention to the concepts of communication and dissemination of personal data. The paper shows that the existing regulation framework fully meets the needs of protection of privacy, including in relation to technological changes taking place. Finally, it proposes strengthening instruments like the statement of informed consent and the elaboration of specific policies to ensure the highest possible protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to explore the role that accounting systems effectively played in managing the internal relationships among the various administrative bodies of the Comune (City State) of Siena in the 14th century. This period was characterized by an ever increasing need to monitor economic activities, a need perceived by the Comune with regard to all those who were entrusted with the management of public funds. In particular, in 1358 an office was created specifically to review the accounts of the camarlenghi (who were in charge of the management of public funds) nominated by the Comune of Siena. The office was originally staffed by three temporary Riveditori (auditors) and later by a permanent commission of Regolatori (regulators). On the basis of archival sources, so abundant on 14th century Siena, this paper analyses the changing relationships among the various administrative bodies of the Comune, in particular detail the Gabella generale and the Biccherna (which were the offices in charge of managing the main cash inflows and outflows pertaining to the administration of the Comune) and the activities of the Regolatori. By interpreting accounting systems as a set of rules (i.e., the formalised statements of procedures), roles (the network of social positions), and routines (the practices habitually in use), the present study shows that, since the Middle Ages, accounting has played a central role in the management of internal interdependencies and in the construction of organisational order. In the case of the Comune in the 14th century, accounting practices were capable of regulating, legitimising and balancing relations of power, dependency and autonomy among the different bodies of the same organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conjectures that standard archival descriptions are no longer efficient in order to answer to society needs, mainly in an intercultural perspective. After a brief evaluation of the peculiarities of cultural heritage different domain languages, the specific issues of archival descriptions are discussed, seeking the possible strategies - technological as well as cultural - valid to open to an integration of descriptive languages. A particular focus is proposed on RDA, an approach which shows to be the best candidate to harmonize the separate descriptions typical of archival domain and activating the potential informative integrations with any limitation of information environments and single content quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most critical problems for research archives is their definition. Without a common dictionary and a robust conceptual framework, academic research heritage, specifically if in digital form, is at risk; the efforts made for its preservation and exploitation will not be able to face old and new challenges and even less to exploit technological potentialities and new languages available. The tools developed for making accessible and preserving the academic outputs generally support creation of digital library and repositories for publications or for individual items. Specialized and efficient tools for identifying, describing, making available and preserving this heritage are requir ed. Compliance with acknowledged standards is necessary, but it is also essential to define consistent workflows, approve adequate policies and build sustainable services. The paper will discuss these issues by presenting the Sapienza Digital Library and its goals of identifying, making accessible and preserving significant research heritage in digital form. The ambition is to make it understandable and reusable both for the scientific community and professionals , and for no-academic users. Digital resources are described by the investigators themselves on the basis of detailed policies and with the support of professionals from the archival and librarian domains. Special attention is devoted to resources contextualization, to the provenance information and to the presentation of research projects and their outcomes. Collections are described and made accessible taking into consideration their specific domain vocabularies and standards and a validation process is in place to ensure a qualified approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]