Learning outcomes
The course aims to provide at first basic knowledge of the main theoretical and historical themes of archival science and to describe methods and instruments to lead archival researches. In the second part of the course students will be involved in field‒based experiences. At the end of the course students can research, use and describe archival records and materials.
Course contents
Principal topics:
Archives and archival records and materials: definitions and features
Archive creators
State and public Archives and other archival institutions
Finding aids (guides, inventories and other descriptive lists)
Description of archival records and materials.
In the second part of the course students will arrange and describe archival records.
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons and visits to archival institutions in the city during the first part of the course. During the visits the teacher is describing the most important archival funds keeped in the archival institutions and the finding aids useful to look up in them.
In the second part of the course students will be involved in field‒based experiences under the supervision and the lead of the teacher.
Reccomended or required readings
G. BONFIGLIO DOSIO, Primi passi nel mondo degli archivi, Padova, Cleup, 2010
F. VALENTI, Nozioni di base per un’archivistica come euristica delle fonti documentarie, in F. VALENTI, Scritti e lezioni di archivistica, diplomatica e storia istituzionale, a cura di D. GRANA, Roma, Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali ‒ Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 2000 (Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato. Saggi, 57), pp. 135‒224 (liberamente disponibile nella Biblioteca digitale della Direzione generale archivi http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/ )
Fonti per la storia degli antichi stati italiani, a cura di F. DE VIVO, A. GUIDI, A. SILVESTRI, Roma, Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali ‒ Direzione generale archivi, 2016 (Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato. Fonti, 49), limitatamente alle seguenti parti: Introduzione pp. I-XXII, cap. I Archivi e potere pp. 1-16, cap. II Organizzazione e ordinamento pp. 95 - 118 (the book is open access in Biblioteca digitale della Direzione generale archivi http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/)
S. VITALI, Dall’amministrazione alla storia, e ritorno: la genesi della rete degli archivi di Stato italiani fra la Restaurazione e l’Unità, in Erudizione cittadina e fonti documentarie, a cura di a cura di A. GIORGI, S. MOSCADELLI, G.M. VARANINI, S. VITALI, Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2019, I, pp. 21-69 (the book is open access in www.fupress.com)
Assessment methods
Individual oral interview on course topics.
During the interview attending students will answer in particular to questions about course topics as presented during the lessons and during the visits. They will explain also the activities carried out during field‒based experiences.
Non attending students will answer to questions about course topics as presented in the course texts.
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