Date of tip: 15 February 2007  

Source: Camillia Cowling; camilliainmadrid@hotmail.com 

Location: Rua Amoroso Lima, 15, Cidade Nova, 20211-120, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil; tel (21) 273 3191

How to get there: The archive is located in a business district close to the city’s Prefeitura, a few minutes’ walk from metro station Praça Onze. Note: As with Rio generally, take as many sensible safety precautions as you can – don’t carry more cash / cards / documents than you need, keep valuables hidden and on your person if you have to carry them at all, back your work up if you’re using a laptop.

Language: Portuguese  

Getting started: Gaining access to the archive is relatively simple. Bring an ID of some kind – passport, student ID – and it will help to have a letter from your institution of some kind, but they generally don’t give people much trouble.

Opening Hours: 9-16.30.

General working conditions: Last time I was there was no internet access for researchers, although there are computers. Staff are generally very helpful and friendly. Lighting is reasonable. There is sometimes a shortage of power points for plugging laptops in; it might be a good idea to bring a multiple-plug adaptor in case there’s a shortage. There is a library on the same floor as the archive which was very useful, containing, for example, the minutes of the city’s Câmara Municipal for the 19th and 20th centuries.

Consultation: The archive is very small and quite “personal”, and I generally didn’t have a problem asking for whatever documentation I thought I could reasonably use. They put documents aside for you if you want to come back the following day(s). Document ordering: get a member of staff to explain the relevant catalogue volumes to you; locate the document, fill in a slip; you wait a few minutes while the person on duty finds the document. I found that the documents I worked with were in fairly good condition and were well-catalogued.

Policy on technology: Laptops? Digital cameras? Scanners are allowed?

I didn’t try either scanning or digital photography when I was there (2004), but I was allowed to use my laptop without any problems.

Particularities: There isn’t any provision of food for researchers, as far as I’m aware. There is a little place just near the archive where you can get a sandwich, salgados, pães de queijo, etc, but if you want proper food there’s also, just across the way, a great comida a quilo (food by weight) restaurant with delicious food that will distract you from your research! It’s fairly expensive by Rio standards, but perfectly affordable by foreign ones.

Etc: I found this archive a wonderful, friendly place to work with lots of valuable documentation, so it is surprising that more historians interested in Rio’s history haven’t made more use of it. Here you can find maps, pictures of the city of Rio de Janeiro in its many stages of development, documentation relating to the city’s Prefeitura and (previously) Câmara Municipal (city council); they have regular exhibitions about Rio’s history and host interesting talks and events. There’s probably more on the twentieth than the nineteenth century (my period), but I nonetheless found a lot of useful documentation.

Places to Stay: [If you have a recommendation for a place to stay, please share it and tell us why!] I stayed in the Pousada Casa Aurea (Rua Aurea 80, Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro 20240-210, tel + 55 21 2242 5830; casaaurea.com.br). Sta. Teresa is a lovely, quiet, “bohemian” neighbourhood up the hill from Lapa and so very central but also feels very much like a small, peaceful community. Buses and “kombis” (privately-run, cheap minibuses) go up and down the hill all the time and will take you straight to the metro, and then the City Archive is only a couple of stops. Casa Aurea used to be a good place to negotiate a longer-term stay as well as just a few nights, and a little ready-made community of Brazilian and foreign researchers, artists, students etc – but in recent years it’s become more “touristy” and perhaps better for a short-term stay – still, a lovely friendly place to spend some time and find your feet before you look around for more permanent options.