José Marques da Silva, L’entrée d’un Musée-Bibliothèque, 1892.
[Atelier Laloux academic work], 54.5 x 95.5 cm,
China ink and watercolour on paper.

The Information System is composed of information recorded in any medium, produced by a wide range of people and coming from a variety of sources, ie books, magazines, letters, memoirs, reports, designs, work schedules, drawings, paintings, sculptures, furniture, plaster casts, etc. They are documents which differ greatly from each other, but which are united by some common denominators - they belonged to or were produced by certain members of one famíly, being used by them in the respective contexts in which they were living. And this diversity of documents, unified by the context of the family and the activities of its members/players, fits perfectly into the systemic unity that contains it and gives it full meaning.


The structure of the Fundação Marques da Silva (FIMS) Information Systems  available for consultation is twofold: personal and family. This means that documents and objects produced and accumulated by an individual person or by a famíly, collected across the generations by various related members, can be accessed, whether making a document by document or object by object search through the relevant catalogue, using the Organic-Functional Framework (Quadro Orgânico-Funcional, QOF). This framework in the case of a famíly is structured into generations, and within these by the main couple and siblings of either spouse, the documents and objects being distributed according to the identification of their ownership. For each person, documents and objects are shown under the main organic phases of life: childhood (up to 12/14 years); adolescence and youth (14/24 years); and adulthood (25 years and above).


Bibliographical, archival and museological information is held on specific but interconnected databases for the facilitation of research, because the QOF, for example, of the Marques da Silva Moreira da Silva Family is present in the three databases, thereby making it possible to search the publications, the various documents and the three-dimensional artefacts that belonged to the family throughout its life.
 

All the documentary collections in the possession or care of FIMS are managed by the Architectural and Artistic Documentation and Information Service (Serviço de Documentação e Informação Arquitectónica e Artística, SDIA) and may be consulted by prior appointment.
 

See SDIA regulations
See list of prices
See user applications forms
 

(translated by Gill Stoker)