Documents from Unicamp's archives and documentation centers can now be consulted through a single platform. Launched on September 9th, the Digital Repository of Permanent Archival Documents and Computerized System of Permanent Collections at Unicamp (ReDiSAP) comprises the unification of Unicamp's collection bases in a storage, management and research platform.
ReDiSAP brings together the collections of the Central Archive of the Archive System (AC/Siarq), the Edgard Leuenroth Archive of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (AEL/IFCH), the Historical Archives of the Center for Logic, Epistemology and History of Science (CLE/Cocen), the Alexandre Eulálio Documentation Center (Cedae/IEL), the Unicamp Memory Center (CMU/Cocen) and the Memory and Archive Center of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (CMA/FCM).
“We work with the purpose of unifying permanent digital document bases at the University in a single access platform for the user. This aims both to optimize the management and administration of this tool and to provide researchers with a more systemic view of the university's collection”, points out Janaina Andiara dos Santos – coordinator of Siarq, the body responsible for administering ReDiSAP.
The platform comprises 530 documentary collections and 73.841 items and follows the updated recommendations of reference bodies in the field of archival science, such as the International Council of Archives (ICA) and the National Council of Archives (CONARQ). The group responsible for developing ReDiSAP, which also involves the Library System (SBU) and has the support of the Computing Center (CCUEC), is working so that users can access, in addition to research information on collections, documents nato -digital and digitized made available by archives and documentation centers.
Some of the items are already available in digital format. “Researchers will soon find not only the descriptive data, but also the digital representative of each one of them, boosting the visibility of Unicamp's archival heritage”, says Santos.
Research activities, according to the rector of Unicamp, Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, will benefit from ReDiSAP. “The speed with which documents can be accessed should have a major impact on our University's research and information gathering activities, and that makes us very happy”, he says.
innovative platform
ReDiSAP uses innovative technologies to provide the best user experience and to facilitate the management of holdings in relation to your documents. Two systems are used open source in this process: Archivematica and AtoM.
Andressa Piconi, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) coordinator at Siarq, explains that the units process documents individually, but storage is centralized. “This architecture allows for greater scalability, better performance and in a way that no unit interferes with the work of the other. They process the files separately, store them in the same context, in a single repository, in order to disseminate them in a single tool”, she explains.
The team responsible for ReDiSAP integrated servers from different agencies. Efforts to develop the platform were highlighted by the AEL services coordinator, Humberto Celeste Innarelli, who also points out the relevance of the results of the work. “With the launch of ReDiSAP, we took Unicamp's archives and documentation centers to another level. We have a unified tool where there is the possibility of placing all our documents digitally on the web. It is an institutional achievement,” he says.
For the coordinator of Information and Communication Technology at Unicamp (CITIC/Unicamp), Ricardo Dahab, the work to create the platform also shows the importance of coordination between the different ICT sectors at the University. “In the area of ICT, it is fundamental that there is this cooperation. This has been our commitment and ReDiSAP helps a lot because they can always be mentioned as an example.”
Preservation of collections
The documentation made available for consultation through the address www.redisap.unicamp.br It involves topics such as contemporary social history (AEL), western São Paulo (CMU), history of Brazilian literature and linguistics (Cedae), history of sciences (CLE and CMA) and the history of Unicamp (Siarq).
Several academic works and researches are carried out by consulting the collection. The use of a single digital repository, according to the managers that make up ReDiSAP, "will enable continuous preservation actions with monitoring, audits and security procedures to guarantee the integrity, reliability, authenticity and availability of the University's digital archival documents".
