The mission of the Documentation and Information Centre (CDI) is the preservation,
management and communication of Sport Lisboa e Benfica’s documental collection. Inaugurated on 2nd November
2010, the Centre ensures the organization, digitalization, and the process of cataloguing and describing the
historical documentation it holds. The daily update of the information related to the Club is assured through
the process of collection, selection and treatment, as well as the production of historical materials for
multiple purposes. It is an essential resource to the conservation, study and promotion of the history and
culture not only of the Club, but as well of sport in general. It is subdivided in two different spaces, the
work room and the archive, and it counts with a team formed by documentalists and historical researchers.
Archive room
Separated from the work room, this space consists of an air-conditioned room allowing the control of the temperature and humidity. It is equipped with a system of compact shelves with electric controls.
The scanning process
Using planetary scanners, which allow a digital copy of high quality and a low risk of material damage, several types of documents are scanned: press, books, photographs, archive documentation...
Processing press, daily and historical information
Through the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, the articles are converted into machine-encoded texts so they can be electronically searched. Additionally the texts are indexed allowing the research to be made by subjects, people, institutions, locations and dates.
Access to the information
We can access the information in two different ways. The digital catalogue allows the research in newspapers and magazines’ full editions. Googlioso is a search engine that allows a research by keywords and to confer all information edited through the OCR and indexed by the CDI team.
Documentation
CDI manages a diverse documental patrimony. Concerning the area of library sciences we point out the periodical publications owned by SLB – newspapers O Sport Lisboa (1913-1915) and O Benfica (1942-present day) and the magazine O Benfica Ilustrado (1957-1966; 1989-1998; 1999), amongst several Portuguese sport newspapers and maganizes’ collections as well as books on sporting subjects. Concerning the area of archives we highlight the athletes’ records from several different sports, Movimento Associativo (1926-1975) – the daily record of all sport and association activities in the Club each season –, and a vast photographic archive.
