Archives and Classification: A Methodological Approach

The attention paid to the original position (initial deposit) of archive material in the phase of reordering is a sensitive subject within the archival praxis. This is the basis from which the reorganization model proposed in this contribution takes form. Keeping in mind this solicitation comes therefore exposed the criteria utilized for the treatment of information deriving from material preserved in a university building archive.


Methodology
It is useful to premise, before affronting the arguments relating to a possible (new) classification system, the irrelevance in this specific context of the technical aspects connected to the IT structure of the database. This is because the organizational architecture-therefore choices and modality relative to the disposition of data within an initial informatic container-becomes determining as mean of reading and comprehension of what is preserved. The final transfer of data into software suited to the complexity of the systemic setting is (becomes) the last act of a process defined previously.
The informatic distribution of data obtained from the material retained, photographs the documentary variability present, and renders available a wealth of information that reveal technical and historical aspects contained in the archive. Technical ones as pragmatic testimony of processes connected to the management of building patrimony. Historical ones as result of the valence acquired, over time, which elements (the documents) that reveal planning and administrative processes associated with the past.
The constitutive elements of the database are manifold and integrated as far as possible. (Appendix 1).
The fields in which the information relating to every documenti is reported are 17 (seventeen). The following list reports their attributions in synthetic mode. The schematization proposed in Table 1 also serve as itinerary by following to introduce the spaces coded numerically from 1 to 17. The description of every sector will proceed through the natural numerical sequentiality keeping into account, in any case, the relationships intercurrent between the different fields (4) (Appendix 1).  The Table 4 shown in Appendix 2 is also useful to recall some cases relating to space 2. Every operation may include a variable quantity of documents. This depends on the intervention extent (renovation, maintenance) from which they have been created. A maintenance intervention of contained dimensions will most likely produce a limited series of documents in numerical terms, while a functional recovery project regarding a part of edifice will have a major consistence in this sense. The brief description used in this space (field 2) regarding the technical intervention in general terms, and is extracted from the material produced by the different professional and administrative actions.
The proposed system has been formulated for the reordering of material generated by projectual activity, maintenance and management of the construction patrimony of an Italian university. It is evident how a technical archive presents distinctive peculiarities not findable in Funds of diverse nature.
The cohabitation of specialist documents, cartography and papers of various types suggests a practice that takes into consideration the significant heterogeneity related to contents as well as the different typological matrix of which acts and documents are a part of. Therefore, some categories have been created and introduced by spaces 6 and 7 of which the list is reported in essential form, in the table  The subdivision and variability of the information connected to the single element are the consequence of an organisational structure finalized to the dispersion of data in multiple fields (spaces). This to simplify the insert operations of data and avoid an excessive concentration of information in the single digital space (field).
After having outlined the attributions of fields from one to seven (6), it is possible to shift the attention to subsequent spaces. The descriptive summary (synthesis) reproposed in table 1 relating to space eight speaks of document identification and various information. This means a space destinated primarily to different types of coding assigned to preserved material (correspondence-reports-drawings, etc.); it allows their recognition and also becomes useful for additional data. Appendix 2, in addition to reporting examples relating to field eight ( The fields successive to ninth, from tenth to seventeenth, recall information of a different nature, complementary to the other spaces and conclusive on the document. After having briefly outlined their functions in table 1, it is opportune to highlight their finalities in a more efficient manner. The interchangeability of data conferred to fields ten and fourteen (Appendix 2), consents a major adaptability of the database to the characteristics of material object of reordering. The secondary indications (7) findable, sometimes, in the spaces mentioned (Appendix 2 Table 6) simplify the accessibility to what sought and complete the knowing framework associated to the preserved material.
Indications regarding the dates (of documents) affect fields (spaces) eleven and twelve, with the format day/month/year in the first one and only the recall of the year, in the second one. The conferral of two options has allowed to insert a generic reference (year) to material without a specific date.
The citations connected to physical or juridical persons which appear on the different types of material (drawings, reports, correspondence, etc.) are legible in fields thirteen and fifteen. In these two spaces, the citations regard any entity (institution, company, etc) visible in the documents independently from the position detected by the same one. Consequently, for instance, the schematic representation of an electrical system may report the material executor of the graphic elaborate, the company responsible for the installation or even the client (customer). The inclusion in the two fields of a subject involved in the formation process of the document depends on its presence (regardless of role) on the same one.
The priority is given to the author if visible, alternatively it will be inserted recognizable options involved in the document production in material or conceptual form and anyway in substantial mode