Unpublished Documentation Centre

The Istituto Agronomico per l'Oltremare has very important collections of historical documents: photographs, books, periodicals and unpublished documents. These sources, relating mainly, but by no means only, to the Italian colonial history, have been scarcely tapped by researchers, students or anyone interested. While access to books and periodicals is granted by the Institute's library, the images are conserved by the Photographic Archive and the unpublished documents by the Unpublished Documentation Centre. (www.iao.florence.it).

We present now the catalogue of the Unpublished Documentation Centre ( Catalogue - 4.3 MB, .pdf ). Since IAO's foundation in 1904 the Institute's experts travelled and worked extensively mostly in Africa, and participated in conferences and congresses. As a result an important body of documentation: letters, reports, photographs, publications grew. While the official letters were sent to the IAOs' archive, the photographs to the photographic archive and the publications to the library, the unpublished documents that did not fall in one of these categories were mostly kept by the persons who wrote them, collected them or who they were sent to. With time, staff leaving the Institute, retirements, changes of job, deaths, the papers were stacked but luckily never thrown away. In the 1970s the access to the documents alternatively called 'non conventional literature' or 'grey literature' was supported by the FAO AGRIS project ( http://www.fao.org/agris/), the overall idea being that of enabling the circulation of these documents for their use in development and research activities.

Aldo Mei, who was in charge of the Rural Economics Observatory at IAO, was aware of the importance of this collection and was backed by prof. Armando Maugini IAO's Director General. In 1975 he wrote: '… the direct role that this documentation plays in the field of agriculture. A role strictly linked to short term technical assistance, a support and complement to the long term role played by typically scientific and technical literature in the introduction of the innovations needed by feeble agricultural structures in tackling production problems' (La littérature non conventionnelle sur le développement dans le cadre de la documentation agricole mondiale. Rivista di Agricoltura Subtropicale e Tropicale LXIX, 1975, N.1-3/ 4-6, IAO, Florence). The documents were collected and ordered and a catalogue was released in 1969, since then Documentation Centre was used by several researchers and students especially in the field of colonial history of Africa, the documents are quoted in several publications. In time the Documentation Centre at IAO became known also in Developing Countries. The issue of the 'repatriation' of historical sources brought to the microfilm reproduction of the documents related to Ethiopia for the Institute of Historical Studies of the University of Addis Ababa, and in 2004 the Institute funded a small project with the aim of providing the documents to the Research and Documentation Centre and to the Ministry of Agriculture of Eritrea. It has taken a long time to be able to produce, with limited resources a new catalogue, but at lat it is available.

On May 20th 2008 the catalogue is presented with a monographic issue of the Journal of Agriculture and Environment for International Development (IAO, vol.101, n.3-4, 2007). Orders should be sent to: Istituto Agronomico per l'Oltremare - Publication Office rivtrop@iao.florence.it

We must thank for the Documentation Centre's existence profs. Aldo Mei and Armando Maugini and for this catalogue dr. Gianluigi Curotti, dr. Paolo Caserta, Riccardo De Robertis, prof. Nicola Labanca and dr. Laura Bonaiuti. The original intent having updated sources of information to be used by keeping the Centre periodically updated has not been maintained in time. There is in the Institute an impressive body of reports, proceedings and other documentation unknown and not available, sometimes even for the Institute's experts. Maybe sooner or later it will be collected and ordered.

A special authorization is required to access the photo archives at IAO's headquarter in Florence: click here to download a copy of the application form.

For consultation contact: Antonella Bigazzi .