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Information on the archives
The holdings of the Historical Archives include collections produced by the Chamber of Deputies from different periods of Italy's history, from the Neapolitan Parliament of 1848-49, the National Consultative Assembly, the Constituent Assembly and private individuals. Given the institutional changes that have taken place and the different producers of the collections and the differences in the medium in which documents are presented, the holdings have been divided into "Archives", which are in turn subdivided into groups, collections, series, archival units and documentary units.
Documents can be consulted directly in the consultation rooms of the Archives, through hard copy catalogues, as well as electronically. In order to favour remote access and consultation of their holdings, the Historical Archives have implemented a computer-based cataloguing and retrieval system for their archival holdings, using a hierarchical system of navigation and descriptive recording, complying with international rules. This software is called FEA, the Italian acronym of archival electronic functions as well as the name of the first archivist-librarian of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Leonardo Fea.
This software makes archival cards electronically accessible and makes it possible to retrieve and consult the documents conserved in image-format. At the moment, about 85,000 of such images are available.
The gradual acquisition of new digitalized image-format documents will ensure a better conservation and storage of documents that will not have to be moved to be consulted since they are accessible in electronic format and on-line.
The inventories of the funds of the National Consultative Assembly, of the Constituent Assembly, of the enquiry Committees of the 19th century and of the Neapolitan Parliament have already been digitalized using FEA software and are completely accessible on-line. The lower level cards (archival units) currently available contain as a rule also the images of the documents to which they refer (excluding the Neapolitan Parliament).