The Fonte Gaia consortium: for a ‘digital ecosystem’ of research in Italian Studies

Abstract

The Fonte Gaia Consortium (which has brought together seven French and Italian universities since 2016) is the result of a reflection between researchers and librarians on the impact of the digital revolution on the function of university libraries, on the multiplication of digital resources in the humanities, and on their fragmentation, also territorial. The aim of the project is to propose an infrastructure to support research that overcomes the traditional separation between the conservation and enhancement of the documentary heritage and research on it, as well as the fragmentation of experience. This new open and interoperable space will provide tools for coordination between different projects and a collaborative dissemination platform that makes available dissemination tools and technologies developed in open source, and that promotes convergence in the digitization, structuring and codification of data. By promoting virtuous practices in terms of availability and accessibility of research sources (open access, open data, open-source software, technology transfer), the scientific valorization of digitized heritage and the dissemination of academic production will be promoted.