SPECOLA 2000

1. SPECOLA 2000 a project for the preservation of the historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories Agnese Mandrino, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Brera, Milano Donata Randazzo, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo G.S. Vaiana Luisa Schiavone, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Torino LISA V (Library and Information Services in Astronomy), Cambridge, MA – June 18-21 , 2006

2. Overview of the project The Italian astronomical observatories The concept of “archives” The meaning of the word “archivio” Archives can “expand” Which documents are held in Italian historical archives Criteria for archive arrangement The status of the Italian observatory archives before Specola 2000 The Institutions behind the project Hands-on work Phases of the Project Results Web searching Contents SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

3. Overview of the project The project, started in the year 2000, aims to: • arrange and produce an inventory of the historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories • create appropriate searching tools (inventories, indexes, subject catalogues) and make them accessible via Internet • open the arranged archives to the public • encourage the utilization of the historical documents held in the archives, thus increasing their value SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

4. The astronomical observatories in Italy are among the oldest institutions devoted to scientific research. In Milan, for example, the University was founded in the first half of the XX century, but the Brera Observatory dates back to 1764 and is thus the oldest research body in town. These are the years of foundations of the 12 Italian Observatories: Bologna 1711 Torino 1759 Brera (Milano) 1764 Padova 1767 Palermo 1790 Roma XVIII century, 2nd half Napoli 1819 Arcetri 1872 Catania 1880 Collurania (Teramo) 1882 Trieste 1898 Cagliari 1899 The Italian astronomical observatories Such a striking difference in the age of the institutions depends on the fact that, prior to 1861, Italy was not a single nation, its territory being divided into about ten separate and independent states, each having its own Government and administration in charge of scientific and cultural matters. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

5. The observatories contain treasures, such as archives, libraries, scientific instruments, whose historical and scientific value is huge. Moreover, some of the institutions are, and have always been since foundation, housed in historical buildings: the Royal Palace in Palermo the Brera Palace in Milan SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

6. the Torlonga Tower in Padua the Poggi Palace in Bologna the Capodimonte Observatory in Naples, the first purpose-built edifice to house an astronomical observatory. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

7. The concept of “archives” • What we intend by “archives” • What are historical archives • On which criteria are archives arranged SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

8. The meaning of the word “archivio” • By archives it is intended an organic whole of documents which provides the record of the history of the institution to which they belong. • Archives are not a collection of documents put together in an artificial, a posteriori manner. • On the contrary they originate from the natural organization of the documents produced by or sent to an institution (the Observatories in our case) throughout its history. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

9. Archives can “expand” • In some cases the original collections have grown through donations. • For instance the historical archives at the Bologna Observatory have been very recently given the private collections belonging to its former Director Guido Horn D’Arturo (1869-1967), by his heirs. • In other cases, observatory archives can contain the papers relating to scientific associations, such is the case of the archives of the Società Urania held in the Torino Observatory, or part of the archives of the Società Astronomica Italiana in Brera, or the archives of the Copernican and Astronomic Museum in the Rome Observatory. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

10. Which documents are held in Italian historical archives • Italian historical archives hold documents older than forty years. • According to the Italian legislation, the collections must be arranged and held indefinitely. • Inactive records dating less than forty years and no longer used in current practice, are held in a temporaryrepository (=deposito) until the forty years expire and thy can be transferred to the archives. • If the records are still in use, they are considered “current archives”. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

11. http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

12. Criteria for archive arrangement • The only arranging method which is widely accepted and recognized is based on “historical” criteria. • i.e archives which through time for any reason have lost their order should be brought back to the organization they had when they first were originated. • Their original form in fact enables us to understand how a given institution worked and thus to reconstruct its history SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

13. The status of the Italian observatory archives before Specola 2000 Before the onset of this project, some observatories, aware of the importance and value of their archives, had partially arranged them (Brera, Torino, Palermo, Bologna, Naples, Catania and Rome), but only with Specola 2000 could their arrangement be carried out in an organic and coordinated manner. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

14. The Institutions behind the project • The twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories promoters of the Project coordinated by Giorgia Foderà Serio, professor of History of Astronomy at the University of Palermo (after her retirement in 2003, Fabrizio Bonoli, professor of Astronomy at the University of Bologna) and Agnese Mandrino, archivist and librarian at the Brera Observatory. With the creation in 2002 of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) the project is carried out within the Libraries and Historical Archives Working Group. • The Società Astronomica Italiana, supporter of the project (with the coordination of Salvatore Serio, professor of Astronomy at the University of Palermo) SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

15. The Ministero per i Beni e Attività Culturali, Ufficio Centrale per i Beni archivistici, the Italian institution in charge of archive preservation and legislation, is financing almost entirely the project (the people taking care of Specola 2000 are Maria Grazia Pastura, director, and Michaela Procaccia). • http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/divisione_III/interventi.html SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

16. Hands-on work • Now a few words on how the project actually works. • In each observatory there is a figure, often the librarian, in charge of the Specola 2000 project. This person is not supposed to arrange the archives (this task requires a great deal of technical knowledge and a lot of additional time) but to act as a supervisor. • The arrangement and inventory production work is carried out by an experienced archivist, selected and paid by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. • The project did not indicate a preferential software to utilize during the arrangement of the single archives. In the end, the format of the various inventories will be “standardized” and fed into SESAMO, an archives-specialized software. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

17. Phases of the Project Specola 2000 is being carried out in 4 phases: • Census of the archival materials held in each observatory. This operation has enabled us to verify the extent of the documents kept throughout the centuries. The information recorded for each observatory has included the history of the institution, the contents of the archives and their conservation status • Arranging and producing an inventory of all the records up to 1960 and held in the observatory archives. This applies to the archives which had never had an inventory (Rome, Padua, Cagliari, Teramo and Trieste) and to those which had a partial one (Bologna, Catania, Palermo, Milano, Arcetri, Torino and Naples) SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

18. Phases of the Project (cont.) • Make an inventory of the correspondence items. It is yet unknown if this phase will take place in all the observatories (owing to lack of funds) but in some places such as Arcetri, where the Giorgio Abetti correspondence represents the majority of the documents, this work is at a very advanced stage • “Virtual” recovery of documents produced by the Italian observatories and held by other institutions. For this last phase to be started, it is mandatory that the three previous ones have been entirely carried out, enabling us to gain a more complete picture of the history of each institution and the extent of the archives SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

19. Results • Up until now, the project has financed, either partially or totally, the arrangement of the archives held by the following observatories: • Arcetri • Brera • Catania • Padova • Palermo • Roma • Bologna • The archives of the Torino and Naples observatories had already been arranged before the start of the Specola 2000 project. • The arranging and cataloguing of the documents has enabled us to identify some common (though different in structure) archival series, which can be regarded as the skeleton of the observatory archives. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

20. Results (cont.) When we consider them, we notice that these series reflect the scientific work carried out in this type of scientific institution: • Meteorological observations • Astronomical observations • Clock observations • Magnetic observations • Topographic observations • Protocol registers • Administrative records • Accounting records • Scientific correspondence • Astronomer fonds • Iconographic fonds The archives of each observatory have been arranged respecting their original structure. SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

21. Results (cont.) • The information about the institutions where the archives originated, and the body where the same are held, will be fed into the SIUSA portal: http://siusa.signum.sns.it/ • Realized by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali, this portal gives information on lots of different types of Italian archives (public, private, ecclesiastic, school, borough councils, firms) SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

22. http://siusa.signum.sns.it/ SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

23. Web searching To end with, I would like to point out that as a result of the Specola 2000 project, and also thanks to the work done previously, the inventories of five observatory archives are entirely or partially searchable via web. • Torino http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio • Arcetri http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico/ • Brera http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html • Napoli http://vivara.na.astro.it:8081/tomcat/biblio/ida.html • Bologna http://www.bo.astro.it/~biblio/Archives/copertina.html SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

24. http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

25. http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico/ SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

26. http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

27. http://vivara.na.astro.it:8081/tomcat/biblio/ida.html SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

28. http://www.bo.astro.it/~biblio/Archives/copertina.html SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

29. Agnese Mandrinomandrino@brera.mi.astro.it INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Brera, Milano http://www.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html Donata Randazzodonata@astropa.unipa.it INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo “G.S. Vaiana” http://www.astropa.unipa.it/Library/index.html Luisa Schiavoneschiavone@oato.inaf.it INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Torino http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio/ (Archives) http://www.oato.inaf.it/biblioteca/en/index.html (Library) Authors’ references SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone