A conservação preventiva do acervo fotográfico do Solar dos Câmara

Abstract

The preventive conservation, one of the activities of the “Função arquivística de preservação”, is a group of actions and procedures aimed to physically protect the collections from deterioration agents. The main topic of this study is the conservation of “Solar dos Câmara” pictures collection, questioning if the actions taken to preserve the pictures can be considered satisfactory to save the institutional memory of the Legislative Assembly. The goal of this investigation was to define literature-based preservation techniques for the “Família Câmara” photographic collection. The methodology adopted has been defined by preservation experts through the employment of methods like: direct observation, creation of a deterioration agents’ database, identification and implementation of corrective actions by sampling. As result, the research on the Solar dos Câmara’s collection demonstrated that the 67% of damages, it means the majority of them, were caused by physical-mechanical agents, followed by 24% of damages caused by physical agents on the images stored in albums (78% of them in color) and chemical agents for the spare ones (72% black and white). According to the literature notes and investigations carried on, some recommendations were made for preventive conservation actions, in order to stabilize and reduce the deterioration agents’ interference on the collection under study.