AIDforINFO. L’archivio come industria dell’informazione. Protocolli dual use per l'accessibilità, la gestione del ciclo di vita e la titolazione ‘intelligente’ degli archivi militari di architettura per la conservazione e il restauro ‘informato’ del patrimonio difensivo storico.

The Ph.D. research project, named AIDforINFO - The Archive as an ‘Information Industry’, takes as its starting point an unsolved problem for Italian researchers involved in military architecture studies: the limited access to military archives, generally sealed, only partially digitized, and not adequately cataloged as regards to the architectural field. Indeed, these documents are essential for multidisciplinary studies on military architecture in terms of assessment of their different kind of cultural and economic values and, consequently, for their protection, conservation, and enhancement. For this reason, the research aims at investigating the role of the documentary source in the knowledge process and, contemporarily, at implementing the tools for allowing ‘intelligent’ access and efficient queries into the contents, safeguarding the protection of sensitive data, while also enhancing the essential ‘public’ nature of the State Archives (dual use). It also includes the definition of protocols for the digitization of Italian architectural military archives, especially the infrastructure ones: part of the work consisted of experimenting with the digitization protocol in use at the Ce.De.C.U. - ‘Centro di Dematerializzazione e Conservazione Unico della Difesa’ - based in Gaeta, with the goal of implementing the workflow by considering the testimonial and cultural value of the document. The main objective of the research is the construction of the AIDforINFO metadata set, designed to extend selected standard ontologies (Dublin Core, ArCo - ICCD, among others) by integrating essential information for the knowledge and control of the military heritage, and functional for the construction of a Web Portal of the historical properties of the Defense. Since the research is funded under the National Operational Program on Research and Innovation (PON RI) 2014-2020 (Directorial Decree no. 1377), issued by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, this specific industrial goal is pursued in cooperation with the Italian company Leonardo S.p.A., leader in the field of IT systems and services for Logistics Management dedicated to the Defense. The fundamental issues of accessing Military Heritage data, setting up the digitization process, and structuring the database were addressed during the research experience in Canada, at Carleton University, with the support of several institutions - particularly the Department of National Defense itself and Library and Archives Canada.