The Gea software system to describe, manage and consult historical archives was created as the tool for the Archivi del Novecento project. The original features, designed and based on the characteristics of the archival collections created or held by cultural institutes and political associations, have evolved through time in response to the demands of different institutions (banks, companies and public institutions historical archives). The Gea 4.06 release, issued in april 2006, gathered up all these different experiences, enriched by new requirements derived from the use in the National Archives and in the Senate Historical Archive.
The software is available in stand alone, client-server and Web versions. (go to the brochure - in italian)
GEA can handle any type of documents (texts, images, drawings, videos) and can define dynamic archival structures, offering a wide range of retrieval and printing options. Horizontal navigation is guarateed by establishing hypertextual links between different sheets, according to content or reference context.
GEA can:
- file and integrate information, standardising its representation
- describe contents in an organised and controlled way
- restore fragmental archival collections
- browse multimedial objects associated to the archival description
The organisation of archival records complies with the international standards ISAD (International standard for archival description) and ISAAR (International standard for archival authority records).
Data architecture is hierarchical: the holdings of each participating institution are arranged from the top, managing intermediate aggregation levels down to the archival unit or to individual documents. Each unit can be organised in sub-units or inserts.
Several types of analytical records are also available by document source type (correspondence, manuscripts, oral recordings, video, iconographic, bibliographic).
An important support is the file that comprises biographies of the persons and institutions that collected, created or are mentioned in the paper. The biographies are automatically hyperlinked between records and biographies.
Main functions
-establishing and modifying the archival structure: the archival structure can be defined both in advance and in progress, as well the allocation of single units to different levels in the organisation. GEA automatically generates vertical links based on the archival hierarchy, while horizontal ones are easily defined;
-ordering and numbering: for each archival record it is possible to define different ordering criteria (chronological, alphabetical, original position, classification) and then assign a number to the ordered sequences. The sequences can be modified later;
- management of biographies: names inserted in specific fields automatically generate blank biography records, hypertextually linked to each individual occurrence. While filling the fields, a list of possible homonyms allows to select the record to link;
-position: should documents or collections change their physical position, a dedicated function obviates the need to manually update individual records;
- filing plan: for institutional archives, the system allows to create a filing plan (“titolario”) separated from the archival description. Its structure can be imported within the levels of the archival structure according to different modes;
-classification field: GEA allows to manage complex classification systems (up to 4 levels) and allows to order the records accordingly to the classification.
-search: several different searches are possible: general, by data field or by record type. Results can be browsed according to results ordering criteria. Search results can be copied to any other structure level (advance ordering function);
-merging of records stored on different machines: if archivist do not work on a local network, it is possible to merge databases compiled on different stand-alone machines;
-print: several reports are available (inventory at document level with reference to the archival position, chronological orders of document, correspondence index, original order and references). It is possible to print a collection listing partially, as well to select specific fields. Inventories are provided with persons, organisation and place indexes with pointers to the printed pages;
-online help: two help modes are available: pressing the F1 key the system provides the pages of the manual for the function in use; pressing the F5 key each record field comes with archival compilation instructions. The two helps are also available as Word files in the Manuals file on the installation CD.
-users and access: three users profiles are available, with three different levels of access to the database: Administrator (full access), Archivist, Reader;
-images browsing: it is possible to join together several images to create a “sequence”. Captions can be added to the sequence. By displaying the sequence and browsing the digital documents, readers simulate the exploration of the actual archival holdings.
Other functions:
- drag and drop or copy/paste functions to move the papers;
- availability of several records, dictionaries, views on the same screen;
- navigation through the different hierarchical levels by direction arrows;
- display of temporary and final number of the archival units;
- quick copying of persons, organizations and place names to the index from any other field in a record (for people, GEA allows the first name/surname to be switched);
- automatic filling of chronological informations;
- immediate warning in case of inconsistencies in dates of related levels;
- icons in individual records and archive browsing to indicate correlations and associated images.
The system can be used on stand-alone computers, on local networks and through the web. The latter allows participating institutions to improve awareness of their archives. GEA search engine allows web users to explore an archive’s holdings and supports simple and complex queries. It is possible to perform a specific search to trace the relationship between the originators and the documents.
The software has been developed by Elsag Datamat S.p.A
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