The Archive of the National Library of Florence after the country unification and during the Desiderio Chilovi management

Abstract

The day that Desiderio Chilovi was appointed Director of the National Library of Florence all the services and operations of the Library had been reorganized. Even the organization of the library's archive had been changed through the identification of the main functions of the institute and via the creation of a new documentary series organized according to a classified system. This new classifying system recalls the characteristics of a classified catalogue whereby similar subjects are part of the same class and that gives evidence of a new way to conceive the organization of the knowledge and the exchange of information in light of what is emerging in that historical period: at the end of nineteenth century in Italy the classifications of Dewey and Cutter represent the new organizing model based on the accessibility of information and documents. These models proved to be helpful in the "culturalization" needed to complete the steps towards the country unification. A country that more than others due to political divisions from the past needed to know and understand what had been written and thought across the regions. The classification system thought by Desiderio Chilovi for the Archive of the National Library of Florence is really functional to the operations that the institute perform and at the same time represent a new way of thinking and conceive the library's management.