Portuguese team of experts may land to examine records, study project

(Gomantak Times / 27-4-2000)
Proposal to preserve 400-year old archives papers

The state archives and archaeology department is
working on a proposal with Fundacao Oriente for the
preservation of invaluable documents numbering over
8 crore pages and dating back to 400 years or more.

The archives library founded by Diogo de Couto in 1595
is perhaps the oldest such institution in Asia and has
over 90 per cent of documents in Portuguese and some
rare ones in Vietnamese, African languages, Persian,
Modi and Marathi and other languages.

While speaking to reporters yesterday, Dr Adelino
Rodrigues da Costa, Delegate of Fundacao Oriente in
India confirmed that the possibilities of a tie-up was
being explored.

It is likely that a Portuguese team of experts may
land here around October, 2000 to examine the records
and study the project in detail and submit a
feasibility report, accordingly.

Da Costa who briefed press in connection with the
completion of five years of the Fundacao in India
admitted that his organisation does not have a team of
archivists  and it would have to approach institutions
in Portugal to band a team together for the massive
project.

The preservation work would involve microfilming,
digitalising and computerisation and once started, it
may take over a couple of years to completed.

Quite naturally, archivists view it as a major project
if it materialises and it would be an equally
important one for Fundacao Oriente which is giving
finishing touches to the restoration of Our Lady of
Monte Church at Old Goa being carried out at a cost
of Re one crore.

The documents which include Canarese papers of the
16th century are voluminous and may run into over one
lakh documents. The records are so rich that even
researchers from Mozambique find more material in this
library, pertaining to their country than in their
country itself, according to sources elsewhere.
(Gomantak Times / 27-4-2000)