Digital preservation of the unique seismological patrimony consisting of historical seismograms and earthquake bulletins, and of related documentation (e.g., observatory log books, station books, etc.), is of utmost importance to avoid deterioration and loss over time (Kanamori, 1988). Dissemination of this seismological material in digital form is of equal importance to allow re-analisys of past earthquakes using modern techniques and the revaluation of seismic hazard.

Because the Sismos facility of INGV (see Michelini et al., 2005, for a recent update on its activities) had already set up a scanning laboratory with dedicated personnel (http://sismos.ingv.it), it was agreed to centralize the image-processing activities and the data dissemination at the INGV headquarters in Rome, where the Sismos facility reside.

By the end of 2005, the project has been capable to gather of the order of 25,000 historical seismograms from a list of 611 earthquakes chosen by the participants. The scanned digital images have been assembled in DVD volumes and mailed to the contributing partners. Similarly, all the historical records are viewable interactively at low resolution and can be requested at very high resolution on the "Seismogram Request" Sismos web site (http://sismos.ingv.it/index2.php?bframe=seismograms.php).

Finally, in September 2005, it was held in Grottaminarda, Italy, and organized by INGV in collaboration with SGA, the "1^st Workshop on the Vectorizazion of Historical Seismograms" in which it was presented and taught how to use it the Teseo² vectorizer (http://sismos.ingv.it/teseo/, Pintore et al., 2005). About 20 participants from 10 Countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region attended the workshop.

As explained above, the project pays particular attention also to the complementary documentation represented by station bulletins, handwritten station handbook etc. and promotes the recovery, digital scanning and dissemination of these materials.