FROM PAPER TO BYTES: DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING

A Multi Level Approach to Digitalization of Dictionary of the Italian Resurgency

by Michele Rosi for a Collaborative Discipline of the Historical Studies

Letizia Bollini

Psycology Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, P.za dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy

Keywords: Knowledge management, Knowledge sharing, Collaboration, e-Government.

Abstract: Archives have a lot of documental collections relevant for studies; however items within are difficult to

access or consult. Web will be an efficient tool to disseminate the content of documents rare or undisclosed

for preservation purpose.

The research “Dictionary of the Italian Resurgency” by Rosi has allowed to public, historians to access four

Volumes fundamental to studies on Italian Modern History.

Project has been developed in collaboration with Civiche Raccolte Storiche di Milano (Milano Historical

Downtown Collections) following a proposal in the framework of the Network of Historical Museums.

The project was a transformation in digital form of books; then a web system was implemented to publish,

to search text, using booth a textual format (indexed by Google and WW searchable) and the original

printing (downloadable in jpg format). A search system using key criteria allows to crosscorrelate dates,

overcoming the labour intensive traditional examination. A distributed system for data insertion allows

many students collaborate, revising and upgrading the contents.

Next step will be the creation of links between the contents of the first tree volumes: Peoples and the

content of the fourth: Events where peoples quoted in the dictionary were involved as main actors.

1 INTRODUCTION

The historical collections, the libraries, the museums

have a wealth of history and valuable heirlooms of

past times; some documents are even fundamental in

order to collect background information for the

historical research.

A relevant part of the historical heritage however

is not available for consultation as a result of

different situations:

- the precarious conditions of preservation or the

perishability of the historical documents;

- the insufficient number of the document copies

for loan;

- a rather inaccessible reading rooms (i.e.

inadequate opening hours, placement a long way

off, and so on)

- deficiency of structures, staff shortage,

inadequacy of the spaces.

The core problems are always the limitations for

the physical protection of the original documents

and the inadequate access service to the collections

(Camurri, 2008).

On the opposite the new information

technologies of the web are producing accessibility

to remote information, are enabling the search of

documents outside the actual physical domain, and

allows at the end to share the knowledge.

The pilot project “Dizionario Nazionale del

Risorgimento Italiano” is a research pathway that,

starting from a real case is aimed to produce a

possible general model to make accessible and

shared the historical culture and the documental

heritage by means of the web tools.

Starting from a real case history the project has

been developed following the guidelines of the

Minerva working Group 5 for the quality of the

cultural web sites (Filippi, 2004).

2 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

The project has been started inside the framework of

a larger research pathway established in 2005 based

on the Network of the Museums of Milan Down

Town: an historical network of museums and of

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Bollini L.

FROM PAPER TO BYTES: DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING - A Multi Level Approach to Digitalization of Dictionary of the Italian Resurgency by Michele Rosi for a Collaborative Discipline

of the Historical Studies.

DOI: 10.5220/0001837605670571

In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2009), page

ISBN: 978-989-8111-81-4

public art galleries located in the historic city center

of Milan.

The seven museums (Museum of the

Risorgimento, House of Alessandro Manzoni,

Theatrical Museum alla Scala, Contemporary

Museum of History, Museum of Milan, Museum

Bagatti-Valsecchi) exploited the network to create a

territorial, real and virtual system in order to get

visibility, to have efficient tools of communication

and visibility and to maximize the investments -

always inadequate for the public Italian institutions

- shared between the several museums to create

common and shared web platform.

As a consequence of the success of this first pilot

project sponsored and founded by the Milano town

council, the Municipal Historical Collections on

initiative of the director Dott. Roberto Guerri

decided to invest in a series of projects, not more on

the territorial network, but on specific Documental

Archives. Many projects where started between

2007 and 2008; among the projects one was aimed

to render in digital form and to allow the on line

consultation of the Rosi Dictionary.

The National Dictionary of the Italian

Resurgency is a fundamental work for the Italians

national historical studies; the work is composed by

4 volumes subdivided in two parts.

The first three volumes are dedicated to the

personalities of the Risorgimento history, the fourth

one refers to facts, that is to say the historical events,

the battles and so on that have as protagonists the

figures cited in the preceding three volumes.

Editor of this work was Michele Rosi; he was

involved in the compilation starting from the year

1930 until its death; many authors were involved

that continued and finished the work. The dictionary

is regarded as a fundamental work for the historical

research for the abundance of the mentioned

personalities, for the completeness of the

information and for the extension of the in-depth

studies.

Few copies of the work are still preserved by

Italian Historical Archives; amidst them the

Foundation of the Italian Risorgimento Museum,

member of the Municipal Historical Collections of

Milano, that collects the library, the periodicals

library and the Documental Collections.

3 TECHNOLOGY AS A NEW

FORM OF KNOWLEDGE

CONSERVATION

A first tentative of search was tied to a Ph.D. thesis

in modern and contemporary history (in the late

‘90s): the volumes have been already scanned in

graphical format (every single page was saved in

format jpg in high resolution) rather than through

OCR; the material was indeed barely useable.

The research project arose from this fundamental

problem: how to make somehow operable this

collection of information already digitalized, but in a

not correct format and how to translate them in a

database.

Figure 1: First version: scanned paper.

In this preliminary phase a first software was

implemented: exploiting the peculiarity of the more

recent versions of Acrobat Reader

™ and the

possibility to select blocks of text inside the jpg

image, the translation of the contents from the

graphic format to an editable text was efficiently

performed.

The preparation and the importation of the data

was finished by the human supervision of the

curators of the project working in close connection

with (coordinating) a group of university students

involved in the search; texts were submitted to a first

revision and a final correction of the drafts.

3.1 Technology as a Form of Shared

Information

The preparatory phase has come to results, the

project was continued in order to fully exploit the

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opportunities of the network and of the digital

technologies:

- data were laid on line for the dissemination and

the sharing of the contents (accessibility);

- data were done searchable via web

(availability);

- actual criteria of the historical domain were set

up to search inside the same system

(searcheability);

- correlation of the contents (ipertextuality)

inside the different volumes;

- a system of administration and management of

the contents has to be implemented based on a

widespread editing (community);

- an user interface very focussed on the contents

search and presentation was developed. The

simplicity of use and a look&feel graphic design

were the prevalent guidelines.

3.2 Knowledge Accessibility

The first aim pursued by the project was to have on

line the contents of the Dictionary. The network for

its global pervasiveness - as stated by Rifkind -

(2003) is the most relevant medium to share the

knowledge. To develop a site and a publishing

system of the four volumes content is a way to

spread out this historical wealth from the narrow

space of a library, limited in a physical place, and in

consultation hours and with formal and inefficient

procedures of transcription and coping. The project

has given the Dictionary a new universal access and

diffusion, applying virtuous models that at the

present are developed to support the Cultural

Institutions pertaining to the public Administration

Not only: the web site achieves a double effect:

offers the scholars, historians and researchers that

are the most frequent users an easy and efficient way

to investigate the contents; in addition web

disseminates the historical knowledge of the Italian

Resurgency to the common people. They are

allowed to recognize the historical roots of the

country, to search for ancestors and events of the

Resurgency heritage and to get acquainted with

the

process of building our Nation.

The accessibility, how underlines Visciola

(2002) is not based only on the possibility to find out

some data in network, but is based mainly on the

organization and the elaboration of published data.

Opportunity will be offered to non specialist but

interested users to benefit and enjoy the access to the

data. The archive open again on a demonstrative

virtual space

thanks to the diffusion technology

becomes again collective heritage and open memory.

3.3 Availability and Searcheability

If the on line publishing makes the data available,

only a new arrangement according to complex

search criteria makes data searchable.

In the printed dictionary the returns, marked by

headwords and from notes that cross connect across

the different volumes, are still a static tool of a

consultation that is still sequential or rather punctual.

Figure 2: Internal research system.

In the framework of a digital version instead the

database is seacheable applying different criteria of

selection; criteria can be used singularly or cross

correlated to obtain even more specific and precise

results (for example date of birth, place of birth,

keywords, like the name of a battle or of an event,

name of the curator of the biographical note etc.).

As an example, the name of a battle can be

searched, in order to verify the name of the peoples

involved in the event , and at the same time the dead

date, in order to exclude peoples that died before the

battle or before an event.

3.4 Hypertext as Knowledge Extension

Furthermore the system allows a sophisticated

search covering all the contents and crossing the

borders of all the volumes of the dictionary. The

actual hypertextuality of the dynamic system of

search of the DB allows to create and discover

unthinkable correlations or that can be inferred

with extreme difficulty working on the paper version

support.

The extent of the contents, the number of the

personalities, the presence of hononymies, the

necessity of to have significant results for the search

domain have been the foundations of the

implementation of the present system and will be

taken into account in the design of an upgrade of the

FROM PAPER TO BYTES: DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING - A Multi Level Approach to Digitalization of

Dictionary of the Italian Resurgency by Michele Rosi for a Collaborative Discipline of the Historical Studies

569

software and upgrade of the contents for the next

release.

Using the correlations produced from the search,

the distributed editorial staff that is in charge of

revision of the contents will introduce using the ad

hoc software hypertextuals connections between the

headwords of the Dizionario dedicated to the

personalities and the events of 4° volume. The

operation is aimed to support student and historians

with a complete set of cross correlations between

personalities and events, giving an easy and efficient

tool to exploit the Dictionary Historical thesaurus.

Figure 3: Research out put.

3.5 Technology and Historicity of the

Sources

Beyond to be a tool of research and a fundamental

historical source of documentation the Dictionary is

by oneself an heirloom belonging to a specific

period with a peculiar graphic and editorial quality

(typographic quality).

In the digital rendering the original appearance

has been carefully preserved.

The graphic interface, based on a extended use

of XHTML and CSS in order to create structural and

semantic hierarchy of the code and of the contents,

offers a quality almost materic of the page and plays

with caution on the typographical appearance and on

pagination style.

Next to the text paged up in code the opportunity

is given to download in JPEG format the scanning of

the original page of the text, restoring the value not

only to the contents, but also to the historical

apparence of their edition.

Figure 4: Internal fomat

4 CULTURAL DISSEMINATION

AND DISTRIBUTED EDITING

The finished project has produced a relevant two

sided benefit.

An historical knowledge treasure was quite

inaccessible; a virtual image of the book can be

accessed now by network in a complete and efficient

way (Colombo, 1986).

In addition the project has generate a positive

innovation spin-off effecting on the operative

practices of the Municipality Historical Collections

The translation in digital form of the Dictionary

and the web availability has produced the

opportunity to work on the cataloguing and on the

reorganization of the archives and on the

classification of the collected material. These

benefits will be positively extended also on the

consultation and reconnaissance of the similar

collections present and available inside books and

newspaper collections of the Municipal Historical

Collections.

The rediscovery of the heritage has fostered the

organization of events pursuing the communication

and of activities in order to focus the public attention

on the project and on the project contents, reviving

the interest and the studies on the project. The

activities have been carried out by means of the

Museum periodical channels of communication

(newspapers).

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5 CONCLUSIONS

The research project is based on a specific case

history; however the project can be generalized -

easily extended - and represents a reproducible

experience for different disciplines.

The stratified/multi step approach to the problem

of the knowledge sharing allows actually to realize

in many phases the translation in digital form and

the consequent sharing of the cultural heritage

avoiding the risk that the historical documents will

remain unknown and on the worst case will get

forgiven and lost.

A first level is the easy and general requirement

of web availability of the cultural information that

allows to disseminate specialized information to the

public at large, students of the specific discipline or

crossing the border to different disciplines and

reaching for interested peoples.

This is an important level, fundamental in the

cultural dissemination, but in some way generic and

rather oversimplified in respect to the study of

sources and of documents.

The second level - that of the implementation of

search tools specific of the Data Basis contents and

mainly focussed on the research and cultural domain

the historical documents pertains to.

The content publishing on the Web is then more

an efficient operation tool then a simple low level

itemization.

The third refers to the creation of a scientific

community of interest that starts from the distributed

editing and produces links and exchanges

extending to a wider field and longer lasting than the

original project.

A last level produces the maximization of the

resources and optimization of the investments.

The actions of exploiting innovation

technologies and of designing user experience will

be carriers of innovation and winning strategy to

overcome the chronic lack of grants for the public

projects fostering the sharing and the exploitation of

the treasures of a cultural heritage.

REFERENCES

Camurri, D., 2008. Il progetto “Una città per gli archivi”.

In Storia e futuro. Rivista di Storia e Storiografia,

n.17, Ibc, Bologna

Colombo, F., 1986. Gli archivi imperfetti. Memoria

sociale e cultura elettronica, Vita e Pensiero, Milano.

Rifkin, J., 2000. L’era dell’accesso. La rivoluzione della

new economy, Oscar Mondadori. Milano

Filippi, F., 2004. Manuale per la qualità dei siti Web

pubblici culturali, Ministero per i beni e le attività

culturali. Roma

Visciola, M., 2002. Progetto CABI. Accessibilità e

usabilitàper la lettura dei testi digitali

[http://marciana.venezia.sbn.it/catalogazione.php?sst=47]

FROM PAPER TO BYTES: DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING - A Multi Level Approach to Digitalization of

Dictionary of the Italian Resurgency by Michele Rosi for a Collaborative Discipline of the Historical Studies

571