ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 40. (ZAGREB, 1997.)

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M. Carassi, A few Remarks about Professional Training of Archivists in Italy, Arh. vjesn., god. 40 (1997) str. 83-87 Other courses discuss: history of the institutions of the region where the school is established, history of local archives, chronology, sigillography, heraldry, numismatics, chryptography, terminology, archival technology (buildings, équipement, damage prevention, conservation, emergency procedures ...), electronic archives (although not all these topics are discussed in every school). The fondation of archival schools dates back to eighteenth century. Since 1765 courses in archival studies were given at the University of Bologna and later (1785) at the public archives of the same town. The first archival schools originally devoted to the training of employees were opened to outsiders in 1840 (Milan) and 1820 (Turin, university) as well as 1826 (Turin, Royal archives school). Following the unification of Italy in 1861, the teaching of paleography and diplomatics, cancelled from the university curriculum continued in State archive schools. Archival science was in fact underestimated untill 1874, when all schools had to adopt it. Later on, under the archival law of 1939, the archive schools' diploma was required for a number of careers outside State archives. Teachers were sometimes university professors, but mainly they were archivists. Today archival schools continue to be open to the general public. Currently a number of universities organise archival science courses and a special school for archivists and librarians has been established within the university of Rome. Since 1978 new faculties were created to teach "Protection of cultural heritage", but they are criticized for trying to offer a general training to people devoted to the safeguarding of quite different kind of objects. A similar risk occurs when archivists are trained in library and information sciences. The future of Italian archival schools might trend towards a diversification of diplomas: one for handling documents from the middle-ages to modern times and another one for contemporary records (in this case there would be no need for knowing latin, but attention would be paid to new kind of documents). Suppression of archival schools or their subordination to universities are solutions suggested from time to time, but to separate theory from practice would be a major disadvantage. Sometimes an archivist is tempted to become a full-time teacher, thus loosing a permanent comparison between theory and practice in everyday work and a fruitful reciprocal influence of both aspects. Among the proposed reforms, one suggests the establishement of a national archival school with a few local branches to give archivists a common basic training. 85