Archival Information Systems in Italy and the National Archival Portal

Abstract

The glossary of the International Standard for Archival Description (General), drawn up by the International Council on Archives for the development of archival information systems, defines archival description as “an accurate representation of a unit of description and its component parts, if any, by capturing, analyzing, organizing and recording information that serves to identify, manage, locate and explain archival materials and the context and records systems which produced it.”

This definition summarizes the fundamental problems which need to be tackled when developing archival information systems which in a digital environment are the equivalent of the paper finding aids such as guides and inventories, which traditionally are prepared to enable access to and consultation of materials held in archival institutions. The definition underlines the fact that archives are first of all complex "objects". Indeed they are made up of a collection of entities and relations which link them to each other. These relations create strong and specific bonds - "determined" as some scholars of twentieth century archive systems have defined them to stress the fact that these bonds are generated by the common origin of the entities - which even in the digital environment cannot be ignored. It is precisely the nature of these links which distinguishes archives from other "objects" in the realm of cultural heritage (e.g. books and works of art) which in general are perceived as individual and unrelated entities.