La Democratizzazione della Conoscenza Riflessioni su archivi e musei digitali

The spread of knowledge and the preservation of memory have always been the main objectives of Archives, Museums and Libraries, but the arrival of new technologies and of relational and social systems based on communications networks necessarily raises a reflection for those who deal with Cultural Heritage. This reflection concerns strategies allowing access to knowledge and information as well as planning original cultural products. If on the one hand, there is the need of preserving “collective memory” with its changing formats, on the other one, it is necessary to recognize different exigencies and opportunities of access and participation of users (both enthusiasts or scholars/ researchers) to cultural heritage forms. In such a context of technological, social and cultural innovation, the hybridization of fields, which may look deeply different at first glance, such as Technology, Design and Humanities proves to be indispensable “for a refounding of documents and their supports in order to assure a valid and “culturally sustainable” transmission of knowledge. Media digital archives, open data and open access may become the keywords for the intellectual production of knowledge with significant consequences also in the field of communication, didactics and research. This article, moreover, presents a little experimentation currently taking place at University of Catania concerning documents of a contemporary archive shielding the memory of the Monastery of Benedictines’ recovery.