CAMAGÜEY.- For the purpose of contributing of the promotion and conservation of documentary heritage, the country's political leadership adopted a law for documentmanagement activity that will enforce the recently created Provincial Historic Memory Commission, in the provinces for coordinating files management in the territory through the establishment of a priority program to mitigate its harm and to ensure its durability.         

 “The challenges that lie in the region are difficult because a series of measures designed to minimize damage must be taken. Some of them are documentation census at lodges, churches and other institutions. We are also trying to offer indications to some facilities about how to manage their filing heritage, because most of them are in inappropriate places exposed to humidity or damage caused by insects”, expressed the director of the Provincial Historical Archive (AHP), Marila Almeida Simón.

The directive said that in the same property, where the largest number of records in Cuba (after the National) is stored, measures are taken to reduce affectation. “Let us implement a plan of preventive conservation on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis. We have removed blight and we have controlled the proliferation of fungi and bacteria”.

Reported by Almeida Simón, one of the actions that is being implemented is digitalization and computerization of the content of the archives “significant such as those of the City Council of Camagüey, primarily the Capitular Acts, the ones related to the topic of slavery, historic letters and the Teacher's College, among others of high cultural value”.

Consultancy services from the AHP contribute to prophylaxis, to the various entities, which are benefited by the creation of a genuine archive institutional system and by the conditions for organizing the documents.  

“If, from now on, we do not start to work to step down and to rescue all the endowment funds we hold, they will be exposed to dissappearance, Marila clarified”.Preparation of suitable staff for archive upkeeping is one of its key requirements, as confirmed by the directive: “We select the staff. They may not be allergic or asthmatic, then we trigger a recruitment program for related careers.”      

Camagüey has four historical archives (the provincial one, in Guáimaro, Florida and Nuevitas). One of the efforts to inspire the preservation of the documented memory in the territory has been the signature of an agreement between the AHP, the Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz University, the Provincial Court, the Cuban Historians Union and the Office of Historical Affairs, from the city, with the aim of digitizing the information of the urgency court.           

•  Translated by Keila Novoa Ricardo (English Language student)