Projects of retroconversion

Abstract

The theme of recovery of the past and the problems connected with it have hardly been considered in Italian professional literature over the last twenty years. All that we can count on is a series of reports of activities set up and concluded, some acts of conventions or study days, and a certain number of important contributions which are in any case and with few exceptions, limited.
On this occasion, and putting forward at this stage the hypothesis that has guided me and which is that there has been too little thought given in Italy to the subject of retroconversion, I would like to try to investigate in what way, when and how much the subject has been brought to the attention of librarians, scholars, and theorists of librarianship in Italy. I would also like to propose an attempt to direct the reader towards a reflection on the possibility of arranging and managing a project of retroconversion in the style of library awareness.
Reflections on the adoption of management strategies, and the use of techniques and instruments useful and necessary for rationalizing the different aspects of library management, were introduced and carried forward in Italy especially by Giovanni Solimine, and it is to his studies and his many essays that I will refer at various points in my short contribution.
On the other hand reflections on the necessity to proceed according to the logic of work for projects, in this as in other areas of librarianship, were extensively carried out by Giovanni Di Domenico, and it is to his vision of the work for projects that I will refer here.