The education and training of archivists in the digital age: the Italian context and the case study of the 2nd level master programme in “Creation, management and preservation of digital archives”

Purpose: This article aims at discussing the context of postgraduate education and training in the archival field, in Italy, highlighting new training needs that arose from the transformation of paper records in digital ones. Methods: Starting from the Italian context concerning archival education and training, this article highlights how current teaching plans are still anchored to traditional content and are not able to provide the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to deal with digital archives. This article then presents the case study of the 2nd level Master Programme in “Creation, management and preservation of digital archives in public and private sectors” at the University of Macerata, describing the characteristics and elements that have made it successful. Twelve editions have been organized so far and the thirteenth is currently underway. Results: The levels of employment achieved by the Master’s graduates and the levels of satisfaction revealed in the follow-up questionnaires show that there is a great demand for professionals with knowledge, skills and abilities provided by Master Programme like this. Furthermore, they show that it is necessary to work on renewing traditional teaching, providing more space to the topics related to the creation, management and preservation of digital archives to make them suitable for nowadays changing needs, while paying attention to not abandon traditional teachings that continue to be absolutely essential.