Abstract

After a short overview of the most recent Italian legislation on open data and on the role they can have in building an open and transparent society, the paper focuses on the use of the open data in the field of historical archives by maintaining the importance of linked open data (LOD) for the spread of archival knowledge. Since researchers and users are mostly interested by data, news and information, the creation of LOD from archival inventories can help to face the difficulties inherent to adding content to the national archival system. In particular, the paper proposes that the portal of territories, based on cartography and cadastral data, could be included in a project for the creation of LOD in connection with the national Repertory of territorial data (RNDT), a data base of national relevance set up by the Code of digital administration (articles 59-60), rich in textual and topographic content.