Posted on 18 October 2017
Florence, 10th October 2017
THE HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION BRING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INTO THE DIGITAL AGE WITH DEDAGROUP
An innovative approach and methodology will enable the vast heritage held at the European University Institute to face the challenges of the future, ensuring long-term preservation and greater usability for the public.
The Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) and Dedagroup present an innovative project today, at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, to manage the archival documents of the European Union stored by the institute that sees the two partner in an ambitious four-year collaboration.
Being a research center dedicated to archival preservation and the study of the history of European integration, the Historical Archives are responsible for the long-term preservation of the knowledge deposited there, as well as its subsequent distribution to the public, at the end of the 30 year period guaranteed by current legislation. This institution not only collects the documents produced by the agencies and institutions of the European Union, but it also retains the private archives of people who have played a key role in the process of European integration, such as Alcide De Gasperi and Altino Spinelli; making the archives a real historical memory of the establishing process of united Europe.
The archives now store more than 6 km of documents, which consist of about 400,000 fonds. These documents are accessed by hundreds of scholars annually in the confines of the European University Institute, whose website boasts that it is accessed 300,000 times every year. About 20,000 fonds, including paper, audio-visual, photographic documents and pre-existing digital documents, have already been digitized in the archives. Precisely for this reason, the Digital Preservation System was actualized in collaboration with Dedagroup with two main objectives in mind: to fully rethink the management of this vast wealth of knowledge in light of the transformations linked with the digital age and to guarantee long-term preservation and wider and more immediate access. This is because digital media, as opposed to what one would think, faces a higher obsolescence risk than physical documents. Since the long-term preservation of history is precisely the main goal of the Historical Archives, its leaders are faced with the challenge of how to most effectively carry out this mission.
For this reason, the organization have decided to undergo a transformation, which led the Archives to develop a new project not only focused on the operational aspects of the archives, but mostly focused on providing a strategic framework for the management of documents and other audio visual materials in the digital era. The ultimate goals of the project are to shift attention from digital media to users, and to make possible the interdisciplinary use of digital information and materials for an unlimited time.
"This is a strategic project for us, which is of paramount importance to support the path of repositioning the EU's historical archives as a certified digital storage service provider and making our institute recognizable as a central hub for observation and study of everything related to the process of European integration," explains Dieter Schlenker, Director of the HAEU.
The process of digitization will promote access to the archives by the public ( experts, archivists, journalists, enthusiasts and those who are simply curious) but also the use of the archives by those individual agencies and European institutions that rely on HAEU for the preservation of documents.
"We are working in close contact with the Historical Archives to ensure that the Digital Preservation System is a best practice in the industry," says Paolo Angelini, General Manager in Business Technology and Data for Dedagroup. "The digital transformation challenge that the Archives is facing, is typical of all organizations, which operate in a global context, where the boundaries between the material and immaterial are blurred and the combination of the two allows new forms of exploration, personalization, knowledge promotion. For this reason, one of the possible future developments of the projects will be the possibility of other archives and communities to create a relation with the system, thus entailing insights that would not be conceivable in the world of traditional paper archives, and therefore concretely promoting the sharing and creation of knowledge.”
Therefore, this is a model, which has characteristics that can be extended to other markets and to all those organizations – public and private – that need a long-term digital preservation project in order to share artistic, historical and cultural heritage. It is particularly suitable for an Italian context because there is a large amount of culture, history, art and design that is distributed and infused in every part of Italy.
Historical Archives of the European Union
The Historical Archives of the European Union retain and make available to research the historical documents of the EU institutions and agencies. In addition to the institutional fonds, there are numerous private fonds and documents related to movements and bodies that have contributed to the European integration process. Since their establishment, in 1984, the archives promote research, the citizens' interest in the history of European integration and contribute to a greater transparency of the functioning and actions of the European institutions.
https://www.eui.eu/Research/HistoricalArchivesOfEU
Dedagroup
With a turnover of 230 million euroes, more than 1,600 employees and more than 3,600 customers , Dadegroup is one of the most important players in the "Made in Italy" Information Technology sector. It supports companies, public bodies and financial institutions with their IT and digital strategies by providing technological, application and system integration skills. Established in 2008, the group has always registered steady growth, with international operations in Mexico, the United States and the Middle East. The headquarters are located in Trento with branches in Italy and abroad.
www.dedagroup.it