Those of us who work in the archives call them "researchers". It's a term we've always used and it sums up our entire audience very well. But it's impossible not to notice the perplexity, and at times hilarity, that this definition provokes within the company among those that don't work at the archive. We get it, let's not forget that Eni's roots are in research! For the company, researchers are something else, they are geologists, seismologists, physicists and explorers, all those who have sought and still are looking for sources of energy, they are the explorers.
It is precisely because of this corporate heritage that we don't mind the perplexity, indeed it's quite the contrary. Here at the archive, we are even prouder to describe our scholars as researchers. It doesn't matter to us what their official title is or what position they hold, whether they are colleagues, former colleagues, school children, university students or people who are simply curious, researchers is definitely their fitting title for us. After all, we always explain to those who are not in the field, we too are researching. Like you, we use the tools we have (and are always experimenting with newer and more cutting-edge ones) to dig. Yes, that's right, we are digging too, but into the past, both already discovered and still uncharted, and despite the disappointments we may run into, we often find just what we wanted and at times even more! This work is carried out with great enthusiasm by the researchers together with us archivists.
