A study by the Bank of Italy helps to shed light on the characteristics and management of these materials

 

Archives serve to preserve memories and lay a solid foundation for better navigating the present and future. This function applies to all document collections and, thanks to new technologies, is now being expanded to include multimedia materials that were previously underutilised. Exploring the past through multimedia adds depth to the narrative, and this applies to both corporate and public institution archives. Indeed, the latter can provide valuable examples; the Bank of Italy is a case in point. Reading ‘Voci, persone e racconti della Banca d’Italia. Guida all’Archivio storico multimediale’ (Voices, people, and stories of the Bank of Italy. Guide to the multimedia historical archive), a newly released publication edited by Anna Rita Gresta, a newly released publication edited by Anna Rita Gresta, offers a different approach to achieving two objectives:  to gain a deeper and better understanding of an institution’s history and to grasp the potential uses of properly organised multimedia materials.

The Bank of Italy’s guide has a specific and stated aim:  ‘To raise awareness among the general public — as explained in the opening pages — of the Bank of Italy’s collection of audio, audiovisual, film, and multimedia documents, which form an integral part of our country’s auditory and visual memory’. But that is not all: the authors of the study also emphasise that, against a backdrop of significant technological and socio-cultural change, it is essential to highlight ‘the issues surrounding the production and management of multimedia documents, which have only recently been recognised as historical sources in their own right, on a par with textual documents.’ In the digital age, multimedia documents are constantly being produced by organisations and companies in the course of their day-to-day activities. This makes this task all the more important, as it is essential to implement management strategies for the long-term preservation of these new sources of history.

Therefore, preserving not only texts, but also the images and sounds that tell the stories of businesses, institutions and ultimately people, becomes a duty to be carefully upheld. This fosters the culture and awareness that our existence today is thanks to those who came before us, a realisation that must be part of the knowledge not only of individuals, but of organisations too.

 

Voci, persone e racconti della Banca d’Italia. Guida all’Archivio storico multimediale

Anna Rita Gresta (edited by)

Bank of Italy, Historical Archives Papers, No. 5