Serious emergency at Florence State Archives due to staff shortage

It is an emergency situation at theState Archives of Florence. University professors and researchers denounce a situation of “serious emergency due to the lack of staff,” emphasized in a letter sent to the minister of cultural heritage, Alberto Bonisoli, and to the director general of the archives. The scholars therefore ask for an audit on the decisions of director Monica Grossi and, above all, for an intervention to strengthen the staff: “we are making an international fool of ourselves,” stress the seventy signatories of the letter.

The Florence State Archives, the academics denounce, has suffered since January a drastic reduction in the opening hours of the study room, in addition there are slowdowns and inefficiencies on the books given for consultation (“a book requested after 11:30 a.m. on Mondays,” the letter reads, “if it’s okay you can only consult it after 10:30 a.m. on Wednesdays”). This situation “seriously infringes on the rights of professors, researchers and doctoral students, who frequent the Archives to carry out research related to precise work commitments” and “seriously harms foreign colleagues who take advantage of the summer months to come and work in the Florence Archives and who, perhaps, have long since planned and booked their stay in the city.”

In the meantime, the activities of the State Archives go on mainly thanks to the “full availability of the employees,” as pointed out by Monica Grossi, but the shortage of staff risks having a very negative impact on the work in the important Florentine institute, one of the most important archives in Italy, active since 1852 when it was founded by Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany. And the danger, the signers of the appeal to the minister point out, is the collapse of the institute itself.

Pictured: the State Archives in Florence. Ph. Credit Francesco Bini

Serious emergency at Florence State Archives due to staff shortage

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