Istituto centrale per la patologia del libro, Italy
Library heritage conservation: a history told through images
The main goals of the project are the recovery and fruition of documentary materials produced by the Institute during the course of its activities, so that they can serve as informative sources of the history of library heritage conservation in Italy.
The materials that have been identified for this purpose are the following:
• the ICPL Conservation and Restoration Laboratory’s archive, which contains written documentation relating to conservation interventions that have been carried out;
• the photographic archive, which contains approximately 8,000 photographic plates and 27,000 slides relating to the above-mentioned interventions, and, more in general, to the educational and research activities developed by the Institute starting from the time of its foundation;
• the specialized journals published by the ICPL: the “Bollettino dell’Istituto di Patologia del Libro” (1939-1991); “CABNewsletter” (1992-2005); and “Quinio” (1999-2001).
The project’s end product will be a portal for the complete fruition of the digitised archives realized. This portal will guarantee access by means of standard HTML browsers, and will allow for the profiling of users, browsing of content, searching for, and viewing of data and images.
The project described above is currently on the way.
Census of Medieval Bindings
CLEM, or the Census of Medieval bindings was launched in 1989 with the goal of examining and documenting 20,000 ancient bindings kept in 372 Italian libraries, including the Vatican Library.
To date, 14,000 bindings have been examined.
Records of each binding will be placed on line for consultation by researches and scholars. Each record will provide information including a description of the binding and other material such us digital photographs and rubbings.
The project described above is currently on the way.
The Chartarum Italicarum Corpus
An important collection of Italian watermarks recently came to light in the archives at the ICPL while reorganization work was being carried out.
The Corpus contains many different kinds of sheets; some are manuscripts, some are printed sheets, and there are also some large format engravings.
The Institute has planned a programme for the conservation and fruition of the corpus, with the following structure:
conservation of the corpus; identification of the watermarks and pinpointing of the period and region in which they were produced; instrumental measurement of some of the papers’ characteristics and the creation of a database that’s accessible online and contains images of the watermarks and the historical and instrumental data obtained.
The project described above is currently on the way.
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