The image of the Institutions: creating an audiovisual archive of the Italian Parliament Giovanni Gifuni

Transcription

1 The image of the Institutions: creating an audiovisual archive of the Italian Parliament Giovanni Gifuni 1. The century of images One of the most frequently quoted definitions of the twentieth century is the century of images. And when Louis Lumière, one of the masterminds behind contemporary cinema said, at the end of the nineteenth century, My invention is unlikely to have any commercial success, he could not have known at the time that his prediction would prove to be completely off the mark: as we would say today, famous last words.... And from that moment onwards film images have never stopped increasing, in many instances chronicling the present time more vividly than the printed book, and exploiting the ability to get through to a much broader public than bookworms alone. 2. The creation of an audiovisual archive of the Italian Parliament The main purpose behind the project for an audiovisual archive of the Italian Parliament is essentially to keep alive the historical memory of our institutions by collecting, preserving and exploiting filmed documents of relevance to Italian parliamentary life. Before illustrating the contents, we should begin by drawing a distinction between the two types of materials that will be used to build up this kind of archive: documents produced by Parliament itself (in-house documentation) and documents about Parliament (external documentation). Work began a long time ago on the first and more traditional type of documentation, at least in the past few decades. The Chamber of Deputies has been keeping complete copies of the recordings of Parliamentary proceedings in the House since 1989, and the Senate since 1996; moreover, the Chamber of Deputies sessions since 2001 and the Senate sessions since 2006 are available online on their respective websites. As far as in-house documentation is concerned, live proceedings and the recordings of the main individual Parliamentary Committee hearings are also online and available for public for consultation. But it is the second type, that is to say the audiovisual documentation about Parliament, which constitutes the real novelty of the project, and it is on this that I shall focus in this paper. 3. Audiovisual documentation about the Italian Parliament As for the materials falling into this category, the main ones will be films taken from leading Italian national audiovisual libraries such as the Istituto Luce Historical Archive and the Teche RAI archives, in addition to a number of minor archives minor only in terms of quantity; file:///k /IFLA/IFLA_Web/117_Gifuni_EN.htm (1 di 5) [21/08/ ]

2 secondly, they will also include in-house documentaries (produced by the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate) and also radio and television recordings dealing with the Joint Parliamentary Library as a whole, or the two libraries individually External archives The Istituto Luce Historical Archive Istituto Luce is a national agency created in 1924, to produce and distribute films and documentaries since its foundation. The Historical Archive of the Istituto Luce contains tens of thousands of audiovisuals (in addition to some 3 million photographs), chronicling the political, social and cultural life of Italy ever since 1924: in other words, it provides a vast and valuable account of almost a whole century of Italian history. The material has been very carefully catalogued, digitised and for several years made available free of charge on the Institute's website. One first major result of the cooperation venture between the Istituto Luce Historical Archive and the Chamber of Deputies Library was the inauguration, in 2007, of the new Luce/ Camera Portal for on-line consultation, containing films and photographs from the Archive on Italian political and parliamentary life. This also accounts for a major portion of the Institute's entire audiovisual patrimony, to which access can be had on the website of both Archivio Luce and the Chamber of Deputies. The documentation available on the portal is made up mainly of old Luce cinema newsreels and the many documentaries (normally lasting 8-10 minutes, but in quite a few cases, more than 60 minutes in length) which the Institute made itself, or commissioned to external production companies. In addition to being able to consult its 14,000 filmed records and 20,000 photographs, free of charge, the portal has organised the most important items in the following sections: the "Directory" section, subdivided into cinematic pathways, making it possible to consult some of the most important documents in each pathway, carefully selected by the Luce Historical Archive; the "Primo piano" section, which is regularly updated at the request of the Library and contains a number of filmed items, together with synopses, on selected topics; the "La costituzione italiana nell'archivio Luce" section, containing seven films on the Italian Constitution made by the Institute in the 1960s, each on dealing with one specific theme, such as the family, the school, work and justice; lastly, the "I Presidenti della Camera nell'archivio Luce" section enables the visitor to surf archive biographic materials from between 1919 and 1994 (the most recent President filmed in the Istituto Luce archives is the present Head of State, Giorgio Napolitano). But cooperation with the Archivio Luce is much more than merely updating the portal, and is activated on other occasions, such as when exhibitions of an institutional nature are held or when there are special screenings relating to Parliamentary initiatives, for which the Institute supplies its high-definition audiovisual documents upon request. The most recent example was three months ago, when Istituto Luce supplied 10 of the 17 films selected for the exhibition on file:///k /IFLA/IFLA_Web/117_Gifuni_EN.htm (2 di 5) [21/08/ ]

3 the implementation of the Italian Constitution organised by the Chamber of Deputies in the Sala della Lupa at Palazzo Montecitorio The Teche RAI The Teche RAI multimedia catalogue comprises all the radio and television programmes broadcast by the public broadcasting company, RAI, since 1954, the year in which it was established, and which have been ordered and catalogued across the years. In 1997 work began on digitising all these materials, as a result of which all the broadcasts since 1 January 1998 are now available directly in digital format, while work has continued on the digitisation of the earlier materials. About 50% of the pre-1998 audiovisuals have now been digitised, which means that there is still one-half of the old RAI materials that, for the moment, are only available in analog format. From the point of view of the chronological coverage, Archivio Luce and the RAI Catalogue are wholly complementary, considering that for the period prior to 1953 the audiovisual documentation on Italy's political history has been provided by Istituto Luce, while from 1954 to 1989 (particularly the first 25 years) both archives are available for consultation, and for material dealing with the last 20 years, the main source is Teche RAI. There are two main differences between these archives from the point of view of the user. The first difference, already alluded to above, it is the percentage of the digitised materials: 100% in the case of Istituto Luce, and with the same percentage for RAI after 1998, which is half that of the previous years. The second difference is that anyone entering the Institute's website can search and view the materials online merely by registering, free of charge, whereas on the Teche RAI website only a selection, albeit a large selection, of the complete catalogue, is available for free consultation. This latter aspect acts as a serious constraint on setting up a Parliamentary audiovisual archive. For the moment the only way to search all the RAI catalogue is to work through the Teche RAI staff, which firstly extracts printed lists of the documents on a particular argument and then provides a copy of the material in digital or analog format. As this evidently shows, this procedure is much more time-consuming, first of all, than direct consultation of the archive; but above all it makes the final selection much more complicated and risky. For it is often difficult, on the basis of a list of this kind, which at most contains only a short abstract of an individual document, to know which are the most useful audiovisuals in particular circumstances (for an exhibition, for example), but also more simply, which are the most useful audiovisuals to include in the media library. These are the main reasons why the Joint Parliamentary Library felt the need to make direct contact with the Teche RAI management so that the RAI multimedia catalogue could be installed on a number of workstations in the two Libraries to enable the vast wealth of audiovisual materials in the archive to be searched and retrieved. There should not be any particular difficulties with the installation operations and it is therefore likely that the agreement could reasonably be expected to become effective between the end of the current year and the beginning of next year The other audiovisual archives file:///k /IFLA/IFLA_Web/117_Gifuni_EN.htm (3 di 5) [21/08/ ]

4 The Parliamentary audiovisual archive will also contain further film materials taken from other archives. These include one of the most valuable and best endowed libraries on political- Parliamentary subjects, the Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico (AAMOD) (Audiovisual Archive of the Labour and Democratic Movement) founded in 1979 and mainly comprising documentaries of a historical, political and social nature. The films all refer to the twentieth century and cover the period running from the beginnings of the history of the cinema until today, and most of the images, particularly from the end of the 1940s onwards, refer to the history of the Labour movement and the political and civil struggles waged by the Labour and Trade Union movement and the Italian left-wing parties In-house documentaries One specific section of the media library will comprise in-house productions of documentaries on the premises of both Chambers, in order to better acquaint the general public both with the many activities performed by Parliament and the historical and artistic aspects linked to the history of each Palace. With regard in particular to the Joint Parliamentary Library, in 2008 a documentary lasting about 30 minutes was filmed on the history of the premises in the Insula dominicana, which is the historical building complex that now houses both Libraries Radio and television programmes on the Joint Parliamentary Library Following the inauguration of the Joint Parliamentary Library there has certainly been a much more focused interest in the two libraries on the part of the media, and RAI in particular has broadcast several programmes on the exhibitions and other cultural events organised and hosted by the two Libraries, sometimes jointly with other times separately. And it is precisely to prevent the loss of such testimonies that the Chamber of Deputies Library decided to open a new series entitled La Biblioteca della Camera nei media ('The Chamber of Deputies Library in the Media ) which, every year since 2007, has been making DVD recordings of audiovisuals on both the Joint Library and the Library in Via del Seminario. Even though there are only a few documents at the present time, this section will grow as time passes, and eventually it will provide anyone who wishes to understand the history of our Parliamentary libraries with access not only to the more traditional materials but also to a stock of audiovisual documentation which will provide valuable accounts of the important changes that have taken place in our libraries in recent years, and those that will be taking place in the fairly immediate future. 4. Cataloguing, conserving and using the collection of materials The audiovisual documentation that has been collected will eventually be made available, once it has been catalogued and placed online, to anyone wishing to consult it: for the aim is to open up direct access to these materials by external users, without needing to pass through library officials. Obviously, as far as the materials that are gradually acquired on digital media from individual file:///k /IFLA/IFLA_Web/117_Gifuni_EN.htm (4 di 5) [21/08/ ]

5 archives are concerned, there are no particular difficulties regarding direct consultation. Anyone visiting the libraries can consult the catalogue and request a particular document, and view it. If the materials are supplied on analog media, as might be the case with the RAI documents, the libraries could immediately digitise them and make them publicly available. Online consultation of the audiovisuals, however, is a little more complicated: if we take only the first two largest archives there is no problem with Istituto Luce because their documents are already available both on the Luce/Camera Portal and more extensively on the Institute's own website; but in the case of RAI it will be necessary to go through the library personnel, at least until RAI completes digitising materials, and follows the example of Istituto Luce by making all its materials available for consultation on the Internet, that is to say, all the audiovisuals for which RAI is the rights-holder. 5. The pleasure of images I believe that the outline I have just given is sufficiently self-explanatory of the rationale of this project. A Parliamentary audiovisual archive can certainly prove to be a very valuable instrument for integrating and enhancing familiarity the countless personalities who have brought prestige to our Parliamentary Assemblies, and with the main stages that have marked their evolution across the years. However, we are trying not to ignore the aesthetic and enjoyment aspects that are inherent in all visual narratives, as indeed in every other artistic form. The images not only convey knowledge, but to whatever genre they may belong whether documentaries or fiction they are also created to give pleasure, for physical and intellectual enjoyment at one and the same time. As a man who knew a thing about images once said, For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake. That man was Alfred Hitchcock. file:///k /IFLA/IFLA_Web/117_Gifuni_EN.htm (5 di 5) [21/08/ ]