As Dificuldades de Preservação Documental (em especial as do período da borracha) nos Arquivos de Belém

Abstract

This work aims to identify the difficulties faced by the Belenenses archives in maintaining their collections, since they have documents essential to the History of the Amazon and Pará. To this end, readings in Archival and Oral History were carried out, which allowed the preparation of the questionnaire, used for the interviews with different employees and users of the institutions visited; the direct observation of the environments was also important for the analysis. Seven archives were visited (Cherrnont's Registry, Pará Public Archive, General Archive of the TJE, General Archive of UFPA, ITERPA's Archive and Emílio Goeldi Museum's Archive) and three libraries (Arthur Vianna Public Library, TJE Library and Central Library of UFPA). All the institutions present difficulties in the maintenance of their collections. The budgets destined to these institutions are meager, which prevents the acquisition of materials needed for proper conservation (dehumidifiers, devices for adequate air conditioning, quality paper, adequate boxes, shelves, temperature gauges etc.) and makes it difficult to hire specialized labor; inhospitable climate, insufficient or non-existent specialized labor and security vulnerability are some issues that threaten the collections of Belen's archives. The archives, both public and private, are victims of a mentality, still present among public and private administrators, that considers archives to be something costly and unimportant; because of this, important documents have already been lost to the Amazonian and Pará history. If appropriate measures are not taken, significant document losses will continue to happen, since most of the archives do not offer adequate conditions for storage and conservation.