Maria Rosaria Falcone, Francesco Lerra (Università Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, IT) on “Digitization, Digital Archives and the Italian experience: new prospects for improved accessibility?” held on 28.04.2015 at the international conference "Archival Cooperation and Community Building in the Digital Age" within the panel “Building from scratch: written heritage online" at Břevnov Archabbey in Prague (CZ).

1. Digitization, Digital Archives
and the Italian experience:
new prospects for
improved accessibility?
Maria Rosaria Falcone
Francesco Lerra
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Building from scratch: written heritage online
Archival Cooperation and Community Building in the Digital Age
Praha, 29.04.2014

2. 1. The Context

3. Italy
Focus: charters dating to medieval period
Problems on
1) Numerical data and data from the archives
of their original provenance
2) Physical Access
3) Digital Access

4. Southern Italy
First result of census of charters by Unina Group
X-XV centuries: more than 100.000 charters
in
Regions: Abruzzo, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata, Molise,
Apulia, Calabria, Sicily
Locations: Vatican Secret Archives and Vatican
Apostolic Library, Central State Archives, States
Archives, Municipal Historical archives, Libraries,
Ecclesiastical, Archives Private (wich have yet to be
added to the census)

5. Southern Italy
1) Establish the precise
number of charters and
their distribution
according to the century
of production
2) Have a clear idea of
their original provenance
3) Establish exactly how
many documents come
from specific geographic
area
Impossible to…

6. 2. The Italian Charters in the
Digital Resources

7. Charters are partially available in a digital
format thanks to several projects…
…but, there are problems on practical
access
 Low resolution images
 Impossibility of free download
 Isolated project

8. Problem solving of Italian
Charters…
… Monasterium.Net

9. 3. UNINA in ENArC Project

10. Strategies
1) To create model digital archives
2) Archives born transversal communities
(archival, educational and research
communities)
3) Communities for extensive dissemination
4) Archives to create model of co-financing

11. 3.1. UNINA in ENArC Project
Digital Archives in MOM

12. Archive / collection Charters
Archivio di Stato di Benevento 343
Archivio di Stato di Cagliari 71
Archivio di Stato di Napoli: Fondo S. Agostino 324
Biblioteca della Società Napoletana di Storia Patria 3000
(partially online)
Biblioteca del Seminario vescovile di Teggiano 262
Archivio privato Carrano, Teggiano 78
Archivio Storico Diocesano di Reggio Calabria-Bova 367
Virtual Archive of SS. Pietro e Sebastiano 175
Virtual Archive of S. Maria della Grotta 92
Archivio di Stato di Potenza 1000
Archivio della Biblioteca Vallicelliana di Storia Patria 88 (under construction)
Archivio di Stato di Bari 267 (under construction)

13. Biblioteca della Società napoletana di Storia patria
A scientific project

14. Biblioteca della Società napoletana di Storia
patria
Main features:
1) Foundation
Archives of
provenance
Scholars

15. Biblioteca della Società napoletana di Storia
patria
Main features:
2) Organisation
Chronological criteria
Typological criteria

16. 4. Prospectus

17. Summary of experiences
 the creation of networks that enable existing
digital resources to be linked up
 the creation of model archives
 the creation of transversal and transnational
communities
 research work to create Collections (virtual
reconstructions)

18. Goals
To reinforce our strategy by extending it to the whole of Italy
a) Entrusting the collections to scientific teams
b) Making several of the collections the theme of Momathons by involving
undergraduates and doctoral students and scholars (non-permanent staff
with suitable expertise) throughout southern Italy
c) Organising a specific sub-project to digitise and take a census of
manuscripts kept in Italian libraries
d) Carrying out an in-depth analysis of the model to establish a solid
theoretical basis.

19. Thank you for your attention!
Maria Rosaria Falcone
Francesco Lerra
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
info@monasterium-italia.net