Links and lugares da memória: the Douro's historic distributed commercial archive

About a decade ago, I asked one of the more venerable British port houses if I could consult their records from the early nineteenth century. They were gracious enough not only to grant my request, but also to invite me to lunch with the directors of the firm. At about one o' clock I was shown into a beautiful dining room, where the elegantly dressed directors were preparing to sit at an immaculate white cloth on an elegantly ordered table. I’alas, had come from the /'archives". These consisted of thoroughly disordered piles of books that had stood accumulating filth on the floor of a leaking armazen for countless years. A fine layer of grime had settled upon them; spiders had spun thick webs across them; mice had made nests within them; and what might have been rats had dined on the margins and left thick, unsavoury traces on the floor. Arriving in the pristine dining room to meet the elegant company, I looked as though I had spent the morning digging for coal. It gave, as someone said, new meaning to the phrase "data mining".