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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 11, No. 1
Publication Date: January 25, 2023
DOI:10.14738/aivp.111.13722
TOZZO, S. (2023). Archive Documents as Technical and Cultural Instruments. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 11(1). 121-126.
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Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Archive Documents as Technical and Cultural Instruments
Silvano TOZZO
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
ABSTRACT
The object of this analysis is acts and documents produced through activities
connected to the management of university building patrimony. Their evaluation as
functional instruments - both from the context in which they originate and the
conservative phase in which they are destined to when they are no longer effective
- passes across some examples extracted from the literature related to archives.
Some citations are utilized as a pretext to reflect on what could be defined as the
features, or even properties, of the material preserved.
Keywords: Documents, Archives, Cultural heritage
INTRODUCTION
The various aspects detectable from the documents preserved within a building archive
become the object of evaluation in order to gain a better comprehension of what could be
defined as the functional and cultural features of the deposited material. The ordinary or
current dimension and the conservative one allows a reading of the transformations that invest
the documents. These transformations are related to the status to which they belong at the
moment of their creation—as means aimed at achieving determinate objectives—and
verifiable in their active and finally conservative path.
PRACTICAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ARCHIVE MATERIAL
The term document is generally used to define the various archival materials or can be better
defined as:
“Any material object that can be used (in original or in reproduction) as a tool for study,
consultation, investigation, or as a support for certain research (graphic, iconographic,
photographic, visual, phonic documents, etc.)” But also "In its main meaning the word
document indicates every means (in particular, and originally, a writing) that allows to pass on
(perpetuate) the memory of a fact proving its accuracy and modalities."(Carucci, 1983). [1]
The assertion, resumed from a text published in the early eighties, in addition to widening the
range of materials for which the expression may be used, underlines their role as an active part
in the activities of study and research. Plausibly the information retrievable from a documental
complex, besides to accomplishing practical functions [2], becomes an instrument for purposes
that go beyond the role for which it was generated. The polyhedric (versatile) nature of the
documents reveals itself when they become necessary. From the conservative phase, once the
congenital relevance has diminished, they regain vigour in the situation at present for which
they have returned to be useful.
A document, as time goes by, may assume diverse valences. It can be created for a specific aim,
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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 11, Issue 1, January-2023
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
be reused for other purposes and be consequently repositioned (physically and thematically)
one or more times.
The plan of a building comes during its project process in the form of a drawing of the same and
realistically later when it is placed together with the materials required during the initial phase
of the new construction. During the years, it will come reused whenever there is the necessity
for supplementary works and, presumably, new material will be inserted in the new
documental aggregations due to the various technical actions that are undertaken. But it might
also be attached to administrative and accounting documents in the case of commercial
transactions or during operations that are not strictly of a technical nature.
The relations that subsist (exist) between documents [3] are an integral part of an archive. The
term might suggest connections of different kinds. The production of every single element
(letter, report, drawing, etc.) may derive from a common matrix, this last one determining the
comprehension related to the proximity existing between different materials. On the other
hand, even the content and placing of documents might lead to a relational analysis in the
presence of connective elements. The extract reported below highlight this importance when it
affirms:
“If the archive is the complex of the documents and their reciprocal relations, its meaning shifts
with the variation, even partial, of these relations. In fact, if in a given period the documents
have been positioned in a certain way and another period in more or less dissimilar ways, this
means that the same ones have had a diverse form of utilization, and consequently they have
had, in a certain sense and within certain limits, a different value” [4]
Therefore, according to the assumption just mentioned, aggregation and positioning could
become an interpretation that is key to the use of documents. Effectively, the cohabitation in
the same unit, more or less wide, of elements of various origins might be determined by the
functions absolved of the same ones. A test certificate and a graphic scheme relating to the same
heating system come probably placed together once the necessary plant maintenance is
completed. And in the presence of their displacement, it is possible to hypothesise a diversified
use of the same ones for administrative or other reasons.
The ordering of acts and documents is an argument that is treated in different ways in the
literature on archives. A recurring element, probably recognized by insiders, is the
reconstruction of what had to be the initial structure (if changed over time) of the archival
object of recomposition, namely the disposition of material according to criteria determined at
the origin.
In effect “The documents that constitute an archive come collocated according to a certain order
which is the one given by the agency that produces them. Over time this order may be modified
as a result of various (different) reasons. The archivist, called to reorganize the archive, has to
reconstruct and if possible, restore, the original order according to which the agency that had
produced those documents had arranged to classify and articulate them in series, because from
the reconstitution of that original order already descends a first and fundamental possibility of
information relative to the organization and the functions of the agency". [5]
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TOZZO, S. (2023). Archive Documents as Technical and Cultural Instruments. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 11(1). 121-126.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.111.13722
The last part of the citation underlines the relevance of the documents as instruments that can
be used to comprehend the connotations of the producer (Agency, Company, etc.). The
concentration of material deposited on the shelves, with time, becomes an element of narration
on the vicissitude of the institution, which reveals its structure, activity, evolution and the
context in which it is inserted.
A definition of Archive could be as following: “The set of documents produced (formed) by a
natural(physical) or legal (juridical) person (or a part of this last) - or even, we add, by a de
facto association - in the course of the execution (implementation) of its activity and therefore
linked (the documents) by a necessary constraint, the which ones, after the loss of interest
(effectiveness), they have been selected for permanent conservation as cultural heritage" [6]
The proposed citation expressly mentions constraint, interest and cultural heritage as
representative definitions that will attempt to interpret the characteristics detectable
(perceptible) in the archive material.
The constraints existing between documents, generated through different processes, could also
be identified in what are the objectives and the finalities to be achieved. A meeting report and
a projectual drawing are elements originating from types of diverse activities. The first one
could be the minutes of what was defined within the board of a company and the second one is
the graphic representation relating to a requalification project of an area/edifice belonging to
the same company. In this case, an easy reading makes clear the correlation between the
conclusion of a decision process formalized through a report and the executive project
concerning the object (building/area) of the intervention and connecting element of the two
documents.
It is mainly the time factor that determines the cause for the loss of interest in the material
conceived by the ordinary activities of the producer (company, association, etc.). The term
interest, in this case, presumably refers to the valence, limited in time, of acts and documents
finalised or aimed at specific objectives. They present substantial discrepancies even in their
timing efficacy if they are evaluated in the context in which they took form. A planimetry
reproducing a determined area might reveal useful information for a certain number of years,
in absence of interventions to redefine the concerned zone. A financial writ will photograph the
situation of a limited period elapsed the which one it will not be reliable anymore if considered
for a specific purpose.
Of course, the cultural vocation of the single element also depends on its belonging in
typological and qualitative terms. For example, a thematic map (topographic/settlement) of the
early twentieth century will have lost part of its effectiveness in representative terms due to
the geographical transformations that must have taken place over the decades in the territory
reproduced. Therefore, it will not have much reliability if it is evaluated with reference to the
purpose for which it was created, but it still remains as the photograph of a regional area in a
certain epoch. This aspect will render it valuable for cultural initiatives (such as exhibitions)
and historical research on the territory.
Like other factors, typology and quality related to the documents stored depend on the activity