Over three million pages of Ticino newspapers and magazines, from 1800 to the present day, are now accessible with a single click as never before.
The Ticino Library System (Sistema Bibliotecario Ticinese, SBT) has completed the first phase of a project aimed at enhancing the collective memory of the Canton of Ticino. For decades, this extraordinary archive was a valuable resource, but its exploration was limited by factors such as the number and relevance of search results, restrictive filter criteria, and result latency. Today, all of that changes. The SBT sought to radically transform access to this documentary heritage, partnering with Ex Machina as the technological provider for the development of the new AQP portal.
Imagine being able to traverse two centuries of Ticino’s history and current events in a matter of seconds. Searching for an event, a public figure, or a political or cultural debate across the articles of dozens of publications, and receiving thousands of results in a few milliseconds. All of this is now a reality. The new AQP portal allows for unrestricted keyword and temporal range searches, simultaneously returning thousands of documents. For historians, journalists, students, politicians, and citizens, a privileged window onto the region’s memory is now wide open.
“Ex Machina was able to interpret the needs of a public cultural institution with sensitivity. It was not just about upgrading a database, but about grasping the expectations of a modern user base by creating a tool capable of managing the complexity of current events and History,” stated Stefano Vassere, Director of the SBT.
From a technical standpoint, the archive has been completely indexed using fast and reliable, state-of-the-art cloud technologies. The user interface has been redesigned to be intuitive, eliminating any technical barriers between the researcher and the historical sources. However, as before, articles from some publications are not accessible online and can only be viewed from workstations within the cantonal libraries.
The journey through the history and current events of Ticino begins here
