INSTITUTO CULTURAL DE MACAO

INSTITUTO CULTURAL DE MACAO

　

　

1. MACAO HISTORICAL ARCHIVES : HISTORICAL REFERENCES

Macao Historical Archives, affiliated to the Cultural Institute of Macao in 1986, was formerly called Macao General Archives. It was founded in 1952, reconstructed in 1979 and housed in an independent building. It possesses excellent equipment for documental preservation and security. Most of the documents are now accessible through an automated system.

The primary functions of the Macao Historical Archives are acquisition, management, preservation and dissemination of documents found in either public or private institutions.

Microfilms of documents in Portuguese, Chinese and in other languages are also acquired from foreign countries in order to enrich the amounts of materials in Macao Historical Archives possession. They are also related to the history of Macao and Portugal in relation to China and the Far East.

Besides organizing numerous exhibitions and publishing catalogues, the Historical Archives publishes the Macao Archives Bulletin, started since 1929.

Every effort has been put in the constitution of the Security Copy Archives in order to preserve the “memory of Macao” and guarantee that it will be always accessible to researchers and scholars.

2. COLLECTIONS

Archival collections are acquired from public institutions and they are efficiently and safely stored.

The Historical Archives also holds bibliographic documents and non-book materials.

Non-book materials include cartographic records, iconographic drawings, photographs, slides and microfilms.

3. PRESERVATION, SAFETY AND SECURITY OF DOCUMENTS OF HISTORICAL ARCHIVES

Having in view protection, preservation and the value of the documental heritage, the Macao Historical Archives has followed the recommendation made by the International Council on Archives, with regard to following aspects :

. Constant temperature and humidity control system

. Safety system against theft, fire and other accidents;

. Preservation and restoration of documents;

. Maintenance of the building

. Conditions for an access to documents

4. MACAO HISTORICAL ARCHIVES ORGANIZATION

The Macao Historical Archives is basically comprised of the following services :

. Head, Archives Administration (Finance, personnel, building superintendent)

. Records Management (divided in 2 sections according to different types of material : archival material and book/non-book material)

. Repairing unit

. Microfilming and reproduction unit

. Computer system management

. Public search room and reference service

. Records Repositories

MACAU HISTORICAL ARCHIVES ORGANIZATION CHART

DIRECTOR

　

　

ARCHIVAL BOOK AND

MATERIAL NON-BOOK

ARRANGEMENT MATERIAL

AND DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTION

　

　

　

REPAIRING MICROFILMING PUBLIC SEARCH ROOM

UNIT AND AND

REPRODUCTION REFERENCE SERVICES

UNIT

　

　

ARCHIVES

ADMINISTRATION

4.1 ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF ARCHIVES

Macao Historical Archives adopted, since its creation, the Portuguese norms for the arrangement and description of archives.

There are 2 Archival Principles to be respected in the archival description :

- Principle of provenance

- Principle of respect for original order

The archive group or the Fonds must be described as a whole and for that reason we need to analyze and describe its parts. So detailed attention is given to the structure and to the various levels of description :

- fonds/sub-fonds/series/item.

The first step is to identify all the items of the fonds - we give them a number and we take out referencies/elements. We use the identification Sheet (see Annex 1).

The second step is to identify the series. At this phase we use the Series Identification Sheet (see Annex 2).

The third step is to describe in detail the items. We use the Items Description Sheet that contains particulars of the origin, conclusive dates, content description, physical characters, etc. (see Annex 3).

The fourth step is to complete the fonds description. We do not have a designed form for the description of this level.

As a result of the archival arrangement and description we have the production of finding aids :

- Catalogues (items description)

- Inventories (series description)

Since 1992 we implement an automated system to facilitate our archival functions. It helps the arrangement and description of materials and on the other hand improves the work of the researchers.

The software that we use is the CSD/ISIS, especially designed for the computerized management of structured non-numerical date bases. CSD/ISIS software was offered by UNESCO free of charge. (see Annex 4)

　

ANNEX 1

　

IDENTIFICATION SHEET

　

ACCESSION NUMBER	CONTENT	ORIGINAL REFERENCE	CONCLUSIVE DATES

　

ANNEX 2

　

SERIES IDENTIFICATION SHEET

　

Ssymbol 201 \f "Kino MT" \s 12E}RIES (Titl) -

SUB-Ssymbol 201 \f "Kino MT" \s 12E}RIES -

LOCATION NUMBER	ITEMS ACCESSION NUMBER	ORIGINAL REFERENCES	CONCLUSIVE DATES	CONTENTS/ANNOTATIONS

　

ANNEX 3

　

FOLHA DE RECOLHA DE DADOS

ARQUIVO HISTsymbol 211 \f "Kino MT" \s 12O}RICO DE MACAU (MODELO : NANYAN)

FUNDO/Nsymbol 218 \f "Kino MT" \s 10U}CLEO: (FONDS)

SECCsymbol 195 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}O/SUB-Nsymbol 218 \f "Kino MT" \s 10U}CLEO: (SUB-FONDS)

SUB-SECCsymbol 195 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}O/SUB-SUB-Nsymbol 218 \f "Kino MT" \s 10U}CLEO: (SUB-SUB-FONDS)

symbol 193 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}REA TEMsymbol 193 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}TICA: (THEMATIC AREA)

SUB-symbol 193 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}REA TEMsymbol 193 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}TICA (SUB-THEMATIC AREA)

Ssymbol 201 \f "Kino MT" \s 10E}RIE: (SERIES)

SUB-Ssymbol 201 \f "Kino MT" \s 10E}RIE: (SUB-SERIES)

COTA: (REFERENCE NUMBER)
COTAS ORIGINALS: (ORIGINAL REFERENCE NUMBER)
DATA INICIAL: (INITIAL DATE)		DATE FINAL : (FINAL DATE)
UNIDADE DE ARQUIVsymbol 205 \f "Kino MT" \s 10I}STICA: (FILES)
TIPOLOGIA: (TYPE OF DOCUMENT)
TRADICsymbol 195 \f "Kino MT" \s 10A}O DOCUMENTAL: (ORIGINAL OR COPIES)
LOCAL: (PLACE)	Lsymbol 205 \f "Kino MT" \s 10I}NGUA DO DOCUMENTO (LANGUAGE OF MATERIAL)
ASSUNTO: (CONTENT)

　

　

FOLHA DE RECOLHA DE DADOS

ARQUIVO HISTsymbol 211 \f "Kino MT" \s 12O}RICO DE MACAU (MODELO : NANYAN)

　

　

UNIDADE DE INSTALACsymbol 195 \f "Kino MT" \s 9A}O: (DOCUMENT BOX, CASE, ETC.)		COMP.: (LENTH)
LARGURA: (WIDTH)		ALT.: (HEIGTH)
N^O Fsymbol 211 \f "Desdemona" \s 9O}LIOS: (NUMBER OF PAGES)
ESTADO DE CONSERVACsymbol 195 \f "Kino MT" \s 9A}O: (PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE MATERIAL)
DEPsymbol 211 \f "Desdemona" \s 9O}SITO (REPOSITORY)	ESTANTE: (COMPARTMENT)
PRATELEIRA: (SHELF)	CX. N^O. (BOX NUMBER)
MICROFILME: (MICROFILM)
OBSERVACsymbol 213 \f "Kino MT" \s 9O}ES (ANNOTATIONS)
DESCRITORIES: (KEY WORDS)

　

ANNEX 4

　

　

　

　

Mini-micro CDS/ISIS

REFERENCE MANUAL

(Version 2.3)

　

　

　

　

　

Division of Software Development and Applications

Office of Information Programmes and Services

Unesco

7, Place de Fontenoy

75700 Paris

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

March 1989

(c) Unesco

Foreword

　

CDS/ISIS is a menu-driven generalized Information Storage and Retrieval system designed specifically for the computerized management of structured non-numerical data bases.

One of the major advantages offered by the generalized design of the system is that CSD/ISIS is able to manipulate an unlimited number of data bases each of which may consist of completely different data elements. The CDS/ISIS user is therefore freed from the expensive task of having to design and write computer programs each time a new project requires the use of information retrieval techniques. Although some features of CDS/ISIS require some knowledge of and experience with computerized information systems, once an application has been designed the system may be used by persons having had little or no prior computer experience.

This manual describes the operations of the CDS/ISIS software and consists of tutorial parts that will teach you how to set up data bases and the operations you may perform on a given data base, as well as reference sections that you may consult as you are working with the software, explaining in detail the various system features.

For advanced users having access to computer professionals, CDS/ISIS offers an integrated programming facility allowing the development of specialized applications and/or the functional extension of the software as originally provided. The programming facility is described in the manual CDS/ISIS Pascal issued separately.

If you are currently using version 1 of the software, you should carefully review Part 1 of this manual, and, particularly, Section 2 which describes the installation procedures and provides guidelines for converting data bases built with version 1 so that they will continue to operate under version 2.3. The major innovations introduced in version 2.3 are summarized below :

all programs (ISIS.ISISINV.ISISDEF.ISISPRT.ISISUTL and ISISXCH) are now integrated into a single program and accessible from a main menu. Menu jump keys are provided to directly select the most frequently needed functions. In addition, each time a menu is displayed, the two bottom lines of the screen contain data base status information giving the name of the currently selected data base, display format and worksheet, as well as the highest MFN assigned (status information is displayed as soon as a data base is selected);

a data base may now contain over 16,000,000 record (because of this the file structure is not compatible with the one used in version 1 and require conversion);

data integrity has been improved by flushing all master file buffers after writing or updating each record (this will prevent file corruption in case of power failures and/or abrupt program termination);

the various categories of files (system menus and worksheets, message files and data base files) may now reside in different directories and/or drives; this feature gives you the possibility to optimize the distribution of files on your machine (and, for the VAX version, allows you to set up file protection schemes depending on the application);

new powerful features have been added to the formatting language, including record linking and table look up (the maximum size of a display format has also been increased from 2,000 to 4,000 characters);

menu and submenu option identifiers may now be customized to match the requirements of each language;

sort sequences (for printed outputs) may now be customized to suit the particular requirements of each language.

Giampaolo Del Bigio

Chief

Division of Software Development and Applications

Office of Information Programmes and Services

Unesco