Background of the diagnosed documentation

Documents produced by colonial institutions from 1544 until the end of the colonial period¹ were kept by their successors, the republican institutions, until 1861, the year when the manuscripts section of the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile²; ^{(Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, s. f.)}, was created for the purpose of collecting all documentary production in Chilean territory between the Conquest and 1861. In 1887, the Archivo General de Gobierno ^{(general government archive in English; Archivo Nacional [AN], s. f.)}, assigned to the Departamento de Justicia e Instrucción Pública del Gobierno de Chile, was founded with the mission to receive docu mentary transfers from the State ministries and departments in the country. The Archivo Histórico Nacional ([ANH], National History Archive in English) was created on 30 May 1925 for the purpose of collecting the documents produced by colonial institutions and republican documents generated between 1810 and 1865 ^{(AN, s. f.)}.

Thus, there were two archives that stored different periods of the documentary production of administrative institutions in Chilean territory: the General de Gobierno and Histórico Nacional archives. During the government of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, it was decided that both entities would be merged into a single institution, henceforth named the “Archivo Nacional (national archive in English)” ^{(DFL 7.217, 1927)}. Both of the previously mentioned archives were indeed united, although the documentation was kept separately. That same decree ^{(DFL 7.217, 1927)} established the sections that would constitute the Archive: an Historic and an Admi nistrative section. The first, also called “Archivo Nacional Histórico”, to date holds the documents pertaining to colonial administration, and even documents produced by the State of Chile throughout the 19^th Century. In total, it contains 111,384 document units that include volumes, binders and boxes, which have been estimated to represent 8,665.1 linear meters of documentation ^{(AN, 2014)}.

Towards the end of 2015, the Unidad de Conservación of the Archivo Nacional de Chile (UCAN) was instructed to apply restoration treatments to the Real Audiencia collection.³ The problem, howe ver, was that nobody knew how many documents were deteriorated nor the kind of deterioration the documents had sustained. Therefore, it became necessary to diagnose the conservation status of the funds in order to quantify and identify such documents.

Considerations to diagnose conservation condition

A diagnosis, “Identifies the condition of a person, object, or structure” ^{(Getty Research Institute, s.f.) 4}, whereas conservation status has to do with evaluating the physical condition and the present characteristics of the materials on which the documents are supported. According to the ^{Getty Research Institute (s.f.)}, this makes it possible, under the same variables at the time of the evaluation, to forecast the risk of losing information in the future. Therefore, the methodology proposed in this specific case sought to identify the physical conditions of the support materials and their deterioration so as to build a data base considering the funds as a whole, and not merely one of its parts. At the same time, a standardized procedure to execute a diagnosis would be established in a manner that could be replicated in other documentary collections and archives.⁵

Before devising a specific method to characterize the conservation status of the funds and its documents, we decided to propose a general definition to model our methodology initiative. The final methodology selected had to meet the following requirements:

Application of the “choosing by advantages” method

Before the creation of this methodology to diagnose conservation status, four diagnostic methods had already been used at UCAN, so we had to evaluate which of them had the necessary and sufficient characteristics to make it an optimal choice for the Real Audiencia funds. We used the Choosing by Advantages (CBA) technique in our evaluation.

It’s important to consider that the method to make a decision defines the decision itself and impacts subsequent actions and results. This selection technique in particular is based on the Lean Project Management philosophy that focuses on choosing an alternative based on its advantages, after a compared analysis of other alternatives ^{(Mossman, 2012)}, without neglecting the principle that even though every decision is subjective, it has to be grounded on objective and proven facts ^{(Jones & Womack, 2005.)}

This technique facilitates the task of selecting an alternative by weighing the attributes to be analyzed and the advantages of each alternative with respect to those attributes. This is truly relevant in order to make the most objective decision possible and means, as proposed by ^{Jones and Womack (2005)}, putting what interests us as value on the balance. Some of the main characteristics of this technique are:

In order for this technique to work properly, we recommend not deciding over advantages or disadvantages because this would target our choice: the decision is not about what factor under evaluation is more important, but which one reveals important differences among the attributes of the alternatives. As set forth by ^{Mossman (2012, p. 1)} the advantages of the alternatives are objective, whereas how these advantages are valued is subjective.

The CBA technique involves a series of sequential steps. The ones used here consisted in identifying the alternatives, defining factors, defining desired or required criteria for each factor, and comparing alternatives.

Diagnosis of the conservation condition of the real audiencia funds

Considering the noteworthy aspects of the 2016 Documentary Transfers diagnostic model, which obtained the highest score in the alternatives comparison, we began to structure a new proposal. We incorporated acronyms to avoid flooding the data sheet with concepts and information, we distributed percentages, reorganized the data coherently, and made other improvements (Figure 8).

Standardized fields in the diagnosis of conservation condition

The data sheet has been organized into four groups of fields: general information, deterioration in bokbinding, deterioration in documents, and observations.

The conservation condition of groups 2 and 3 was organized into 5 ranges, from range 1 to range 5 that focus on specific kinds of deterioration associated with the risk of compromising information in the case of documents, and the risk of compromising documents in the case of bookbinding. Expressed according to associa ted risks, conservation status would look as follows: status 1, very low risk; status 2, low risk; status 3, moderate risk; status 4, high risk, and status 5, very high risk (Figure 9).

Standardizing diagnosis execution

The diagnostic operations team included five UCAN conservators. In every session there were teams of two, scheduled for a complete eight-hour work session, twice a week. The number of units diagnosed in each session increased with practice. In the ninth session, all the teams established the goal to diagnose 100 volumes. The diagnosis was done in a correlational manner beginning with volume 1 and progressing from there. The first stage consisted in identifying volumes according to their individually assigned number in the funds. Next, their thicknesses were measured to potentially determine an approximate relationship between the thickness of a unit and the number of documents it contained. Then came a technical analysis in which the documentary body (support materials and supported elements) was segregated from all the binding materials (covers, stitches, flyleaves, adhesive). The entire funds was analyzed by diagnosing every one of the volumes it contains, 3,272 pieces in all. The diagnosis of the Real Audiencia collection was concluded in early 2017, after 4 months of work.

Diagnostic results of the conservation status of the documents

In the case of documents, the diagnosis revealed the following data obtained from all 3,272 volumes of the Real Audiencia funds (Figure 10):

(Table: Natalia Ríos, 2017).

Figure 10 Deterioration in Documents. 

Most of the deterioration in varying degrees were status 4 and 3, which represent moderate to high risk conditions relative to the loss of information. The 3 most significant kinds of deterioration found were:

Meanwhile, after analyzing data relative to deterioration posing a very serious risk of losing information we found:

These data allow us to say that the number of documents affec ted by deterioration that poses a very high risk of losing information is low with respect to the total number of units that constitute the funds. In this status 5 range, the most wide-spread kind of deterioration is 50 to 100% biodeterioration. Although proportionally low, the risks in this range could result in the physical disappearance of the documents, so an action plan against this is a priority.

Diagnostic results for the bookbinding conservation condition

From the total number of 3,272 volumes in the Real Audiencia funds, the data obtained from the diagnosis regarding bookbinding (Figure 11) were:

(Table: Natalia Ríos, 2017).

Figure 11 Deterioration in bookbinding volumes 

Most of the various kinds of deterioration are in status ranges 3 and 2 which represent moderate to low risk of compromising the documents due to deterioration in the binding of the volumes. The three most significant kinds of deterioration detected were:

This data analysis revealed deterioration posing a very serious risk of losing the following documents currently in conservation status range 5:

With these data, we can say that relative to the totality of the funds, the amount of bookbinding affected by deterioration representing a very high risk of losing documents is minor. In this status 5 range, the most widespread deterioration (around 41%) is sewn binding that has been completely lost. The risks in this range, albeit proportionally small, attempt against the conservation status of the documents, so an action plan should be a priority.

Conclusions

As indicated by the ^{Getty Research Institute (s.f.)}, conservation status is determined from an evaluation of the physical conditions and characteristics of the supporting materials. When known varia bles are maintained during the evaluation, it is possible to forecast the risk of losing information in the future, when such information is the main capital of an archive. With this notion in mind, the metho dology proposed in this article and the results obtained from it, allowed us to identify the physical conditions and deterioration of document support materials. This information has been stored in a data base that can potentially control the characteristics of every documentary unit individually, something that did not exist before applying this methodology.

Using this data base one might advance different conservation treatments at various levels of urgency ^{(Antomarchi et al., 2016, p. 23)}, in which case treating biological deterioration would become the priority due to the variables it can bring about.

The most widespread deterioration encountered was of a physical nature and could be attributed to normal wear of the plant materials documents are made of, as well as to iron gall ink ^{(Copedé, 2012, p. 60,)} which constitutes the information contained.

Our diagnostic data base is useful as a permanent tool to control preservation ^{(Allo, 1997, p. 267)}, because once individual incidents of deterioration have been identified, regular control over progress or interruption of such deterioration can be established.

It is also important to mention here that all technical efforts, for example applying a conservation status diagnosis, should be leveraged into an institutional process transcending spur of the moment work teams so as to establish internally defined practices ^{(Edmonson, 2002, p. 16)}. This is an advantage proposed by the methodology described here, because in addition to constituting a data base, we recorded ways to execute and understand our diagnostic tool. Such conditions allow it to be replicated and applied to other funds or archives.

Archive conservation actions should encompass both a broader context (region and climate) and the support media itself ^{(Michalski, 2009, p. 35)}. Indirect conservation ^{(Muñoz, 2014, p. 23)} should also gain importance when planning work around an archive, because it enables covering a larger number of archival units instead of focusing on restoration tasks alone ^{(Muñoz, 2010, p. 22)}. An archival approach that solely focuses on support media, deterioration, and treatment can easily lead to individual and specific interventions with poor quantitative reach, which is contrary to the enormous needs that exist.

General solutions that can massively satisfy archival needs ^{(Sánchez, 2011, p. 22)} such as this diagnosis, may reveal unknown details in the documentary collection even now, four centuries after these documents were first produced. This constitutes a way to control documents that contributes to their order and organization ^{(Adcock, 2000, p. 15)}, in addition to affording them more time by prolonging their useful life as sources of live information for today and the future.