Il Giornale dell’Arte

April - June 2023

To celebrate the 40th birthday of the newspaper Il Giornale dell’Arte, founded by Umberto Allemandi in 1983, the Digital Centre ARCHiVe conducted specific digitisation tests and recorded 80 earlier issues of the newspaper.

Reference

the project

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its renowned publication Il Giornale dell’Arte, founded by Umberto Allemandi in 1983, Allemandi Editore decided to offer the public free online access to all past issues, complete with high-definition digital transcriptions of the texts.

Over the years, Il Giornale dell’Arte has expanded into a network of four interconnected newspapers, forming the world’s most authoritative system for art journalism: the Italian Il Giornale dell’Arte, the Anglo-American The Art Newspaper, the French Journal des Arts, and the Greek Ta Nea Tes Technis.

To make the newspaper’s archives available online as part of the 40th-anniversary celebrations, in April 2023, the Digital Centre ARCHiVe carried out a series of digitisation tests in preparation for the large-scale, high-definition digitisation of 80 copies of the oldest issues of Il Giornale dell’Arte from its archive, as well as more than 200 supplements.

objectives

All the 80 issues and their inserts were digitised to be freely available online, with a digital OCR-supported function to make the texts easily searchable.

Methodologies

1. Preliminary study and analysis of materials

Assessment of the state of the newspapers’ preservation and evaluation of the total number of pages in order to estimate time for the digitisation process;

2. Digitisation

Digitisation of the newspaper copies using the V-scanner for the ones in a good state of preservation and the Vacuum Surface for the ones needing particular attention due to deterioration of the paper and/or folding problems;

3. Post-production

File renaming and post-production (white balance, correction of optical distortion, chromatic aberration, and additional step required to apply masks for tonal adjustments and local corrections on pages shot by using two V-Scanner cameras);

4. Export

Exportation of .jpgs and creation of .pdf files combining both “Il Giornale dell’Arte” digital copies and all its additional issues;

5. OCR

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) was necessary to make .pdfs searchable. A compression of .pdf documents was also needed in order to reduce the files’ size and obtain optimised images for the web.

results

The 80 copies of the magazine, as well as their 220 additional issues, were digitised using high-resolution colour photography.

Following the post-processing phase, all the digital files were organised using different file formats: high-quality .JPG, lower quality .JPG, CR2 (raw digital photography file format), high-quality .PDF and compressed .PDF.

The OCR engine was then added to each PDF file.

Technologies

V Scanner

The V Scanner is a photographic set built within Fondazione Cini. Based on an open-access design and adapted to the needs of Cini's book collections, it is meant to acquire bound material quickly and [...]

Vacuum Table

The vacuum table is a system for acquiring two-dimensional documents. Created within Fondazione Cini, gives a response to the need to digitise large-format documents, delicate, creased or folded. The [...]

Heritage Lab Italgas

Historical images from the photo archives © Italgas

Heritage Lab is the Italgas museum-laboratory born to digitize the company’s historical heritage and make the most of the narrative potential of its officially recognised archive through continuous exchanges with local, national and international partners, and as part of the vast European Time Machine consortium network.

Reference

the project

The Italgas Historical Archive is an ever-growing patrimony, the study of which makes it possible to reconstruct not only the history of the Company and the people who worked there, but above all the links with the main events of the country and with the world of energy, the role Italgas played in the process of industrialization of Italy, urban development and public services. ARCHiVe carried out the project pre-study and drafting, in synergy with other project partners.

Today, the Italgas Historical Archive comprises an original core of approximately 3,000 linear meters, 10,000 volumes, and 600 pieces of equipment and instruments, declared of considerable historical interest by the Italian State and subject to notification and conservation restraint.

Education

Collaboration between ARCHiVe and Heritage Lab also takes place in the field of training for operators, involved in the photographic acquisition and description of archives.
Recently, cataloguing and enhancement processes have also begun for the Italgas library, that represents the result of acquisitions and donations over the years.

Finally, in the last year, two training and information events were held within AOA (ARCHiVe Online Academy), with the aim of conveying, to a public not exclusively specialised, the results achieved with a view to a general valorisation of business archives.

Ulderico Rolandi Collection

Digitisation process of Rolandi's librettos © Noemi La Pera

Example of digitisation © Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Digitisation process of Rolandi's librettos with V Scanner © Noemi La Pera

2018 – Ongoing

In 1893 Rolandi bought a small group of librettos, which formed the basis of a vast collection that he continued to add to until his death: a total of about 21,500 printed, manuscript or typescript librettos from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and various special editions. Objectives of this project are digitisation, archival description, and online publication of opera librettos.

Reference

current équipe

Cristian Bacchi | Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Ilenia Maschietto | Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Marianna Zannoni | Fondazione Giorgio Cini

the project

Ulderico Rolandi (Roma, 23/07/1874 – 03/12/1951) was a gynaecologist by profession, but also a critic and collector, who was actively involved in music studies. In 1893, Rolandi bought a small nucleus of opera librettos, which formed the core of his vast collection, which he increased until his death to about 21,500 examples, printed, manuscript and typescript. It consists of 16th-century librettos, librettos from the 17th to 19th century, special editions (librettos belonging to sovereigns, special formats, librettos written for theatre openings, censorships written by police and prefectures, bilingual volumes and ballet librettos). The Rolandi collection also includes a collection of musical scores and papers, musicology volumes, study materials, press reviews in the field of interest and theatrical iconographic material.

Over the years, the librettos collection has been the subject of various enhancement projects. From the 1970s until 1986 there was a collaboration with the Enciclopedia Italiana, founded by Giovanni Treccani. The project aimed to catalogue the entire collection and publish the catalogue in several volumes. Only a specimen of the first volume was published in 1986, and no others followed. From 1987 to 1990 with A.CO.M. (Archivio Computerizzato Musicale Veneto) project, a special database was created to catalogue librettos. At the end of the project, the collection was almost entirely catalogued and all the records produced were subsequently transferred to the Catalogue of the National Library Service (OPAC SBN). From 2005 to 2008, the Echo Project was carried out, whose aim was to digitise the entire collection and reclaim all the A.CO.M. records on the SBN OPAC. At the end of the project, 1119 booklets were digitised and most of the SBN records were reclaimed.

objectives

Objectives of this project are digitisation, archival description, and online publication of opera librettos.

developments

1. Preliminary study

In the first phase, from June to July 2018, the archival history of the Rolandi collection, its formation and evolution, its donation to the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and subsequent enhancement projects were studied by the team.

2. Digitisation

Digitisation of librettos with V Scanner (ongoing, stopped in 2020). A beta version of a digital tool to facilitate the recording of the librettos and the automatic extraction of data from the files was developed and tested (ScanApp).

3. Description and creation of consultation tools

At the same time as digitization operations, the pre-existing inventory could be integrated with data on location, updated inventory numbers, description and SBN bid, state of preservation, presence of figured frontis, and/or illustrations.

4. Dissemination

Publications of librettos online on Cini’s Digital Library and inking of the digital images on the National Catalog OPAC SBN: this phase is partially completed.