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Introduction<br />

The VENetIan Virtual Archive Project<br />

and a New Approach to Cultural Heritage<br />

Agata Brusegan<br />

Marsilio Editori S.p.A.<br />

Venezia (Italy)<br />

e-mail: marsilio.veniva@tol.it<br />

Alvise De Michelis<br />

Marsilio Editori S.p.A.<br />

Venezia (Italy)<br />

e-mail: demichelis@tol.it<br />

Luigi Giaculli<br />

Marsilio Editori S.p.A.<br />

Venezia (Italy)<br />

Luisella Romeo<br />

Marsilio Editori S.p.A.<br />

Venezia (Italy)<br />

e-mail: luisella@unive.it<br />

Assum<strong>in</strong>g that the existence of human society is based on the memory of the past events, the ma<strong>in</strong> task of the<br />

preservation of cultural heritage has been undertaken by public and private <strong>in</strong>stitutions for thousands of years.<br />

Nowadays, some of the most important cultural <strong>in</strong>stitutions, i.e. libraries and archives, are experienc<strong>in</strong>g an<br />

ever-<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g dramatic situation. On the one hand they have a smaller visibility <strong>in</strong> comparison with other<br />

<strong>in</strong>stitutions such as museums and on the other they assist at the fast deterioration of the materials they preserve<br />

[Brusegan et al. 1994], contemporaneously receiv<strong>in</strong>g an amount of requests to access the same materials larger<br />

than they can afford. We are strongly conv<strong>in</strong>ced that thanks to the electronic media [De Michelis 1994] and the<br />

virtual access, the preservation of orig<strong>in</strong>al documents and their consultation will be thus improved.<br />

The VENetIan Virtual Archive (EP 20638) ESPRIT Project was born out of the need to explore a possible<br />

answer to both aspects of the question of archival and bibliographical repositories and the safeguard of the<br />

publish<strong>in</strong>g production cycle that orig<strong>in</strong>ates from cultural heritage. The project aims at creat<strong>in</strong>g an on-l<strong>in</strong>e<br />

virtual archive display<strong>in</strong>g both archival-bibliographic documents and an editorial collection of journal<br />

publications, but it also aims at def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g a workbench for the archivist and the librarian, as well as a<br />

workbench for the scholars.<br />

The VENIVA Project's Subject and Ma<strong>in</strong> Objectives<br />

The ma<strong>in</strong> subject of the VENIVA project focuses on the history of Venice <strong>in</strong> the period rang<strong>in</strong>g from the<br />

Middle Ages and the city's defeat <strong>in</strong> 1797 till the Unification of Italy. Its purpose is to explore and analyse the<br />

political, economical and cultural relationships between Venice, Austria and Greece.<br />

The ma<strong>in</strong> objective of the prototype is to develop and implement remote access to selected primary cartographic<br />

documents preserved <strong>in</strong> the distributed databases located <strong>in</strong> Venice (the State Archive and the Marciana<br />

Library), Cephalonia (the State Archive of Cephalonia, Greece) and Vienna (the Austrian State Archive) that<br />

relate to Venetian history. More precisely, documents and maps belong<strong>in</strong>g to the State Archives of Cephalonia,

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