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.
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.
