314 /. Michael Turnerduring the 1920s.^8 During my research visit to Salvador in 1971, plans were
being made for the transference of quantities of State newspapers, miscel-
laneous periodicals and journals, and magazines pertaining to Bahia and its
history. Mechanisms were being installed for microfilming and reading of
microfilms, the catalogue system of the library was both logical and useful
to the novice researcher. Important also is the fact the complex was seen to be
a model of new bibliographic techniques, a break in the traditional information
sources represented both by the archives and the Geographical and Historical
Institute of Bahia, a monument to Bahia's past historic culture and at present,
dimished grandeur.
The Bahia Institute, in common with many historical monuments is
exhibiting tangible signs of old age and disrepair. However, for its collection
of nineteenth-century Salvador newspapers, rare books and manuscripts the
institute demands consultation from the serious historical researcher.^9 Salvador
is a citadel of tradition as apparent and representative within its intellectual
and academic life as within its social institutions. One method of meeting and
conversing with this academic establishment is through the institute, whose
members tend to congregate for genteel intellectual exchange and cafezinho
two or three evenings a week. The academic disciplines are not limited to only
history or geography, but can include a fair range of the old guard from all
areas of the humanities and the social sciences. These contacts are also useful
in that they provide the possibility of gaining entrance to private library
collections, which can only be consulted through personal recommendation.
Presenting a greater problem to the researcher is the actual condition
of the institute and the lack of facilities for working within the ancient building.
A very cramped reading room which during its single daily afternoon session
occupied by the city's university and high-school students working on historical
assignments, ofen requires a researcher to work with crumbling nineteenth-
century newspapers or documents in a hallway or under a staircase, for simple
lack of desk space. Preservation of documents is at best rudimentary, with
time and small animals making irreparable inroads on the newspapers. Plans
have been discussed but never initiated for a systematic microfilming of the
institute's newspaper holdings, but have been indefinitely delayed for lack of
financial resources. The necessity to reclassify and re-order the system of docu-
mentation has also been discussed but not enacted by those responsible for
the institute. A part of the problem clearly is in the nature of the institution
itself, an historical tradition attempting to function as such within contempo-
rary society and academia; the primary characteristics of the institute are its
insularity to excessively ' innovative ' techniques and methodology in the human-
ities,^10 and in an effort of self-preservation an almost blind commitment to
maintaining the Salvador academic status quo. Gaining their confidence is a
researcher's decision which obviously is based on the requirements of the