The research archives in the digital environment: the Sapienza Digital Library project

One of the most critical problems for research archives is their definition. Without a common dictionary and a robust conceptual framework, academic research heritage, specifically if in digital form, is at risk; the efforts made for its preservation and exploitation will not be able to face old and new challenges and even less to exploit technological potentialities and new languages available. The tools developed for making accessible and preserving the academic outputs generally support creation of digital library and repositories for publications or for individual items. Specialized and efficient tools for identifying, describing, making available and preserving this heritage are required. Compliance with acknowledged standards is necessary, but it is also essential to define consistent workflows, approve adequate policies and build sustainable services. The paper will discuss these issues by presenting the Sapienza Digital Library and its goals of identifying, making accessible and preserving significant research heritage in digital form. The ambition is to make it understandable and reusable both for the scientific community and professionals, and for no-academic users. Digital resources are described by the investigators themselves on the basis of detailed policies and with the support of professionals from the archival and librarian domains. Special attention is devoted to resources contextualization, to the provenance information and to the presentation of research projects and their outcomes. Collections are described and made accessible taking into consideration their specific domain vocabularies and standards and a validation process is in place to ensure a qualified approach.