The contract to create digital and optical character recognition resources is expected to be awarded at the beginning of the year, based on documentary collections related to mining in the León and Palencia mining basins. The project is co-financed with funds from the Territorial Plan for Just Transition of Spain 2021-2027 of the European Union, which went out to tender last November, for an amount of 1.2 million euros.
The mining coal extraction activity developed over more than 100 years in the mining basins of northern Castilla y León has generated thousands of testimonies that are preserved and guarded in various archives of the Community. These are images of choppers, borers and mining crews; images and plans of coal exploitations: coke ovens, horizontal mines, vertical wells, engine rooms, minecarts, washing and loading docks, railway lines, barracks and towns, among others.
This documentation comes from public entities and, above all, of the dozens of mining companies that invested capitalcreated a workforce and established infrastructure to search for a fossil fuel located underground, several hundred meters from the surface. These exploitations, over the course of a century, varied the extraction processes and technology, as well as the types of coal, which also varied according to the mining basins and the ability to go deeper into the most productive strata.
The trajectory of this productive activity has left an impact on the territory and has originated a wide range of material goods such as infrastructure, buildings, furniture, tools and machinery; of very diverse documentation, such as facility plans, accounting books, balance sheets, correspondences, inventories, contracts, commercial actions, and oral testimonies, which constitutes the memory of work, the economy and society.
An important part of this business legacy, as established by the regulations regarding archival documentation, has been integrated into the historical archives of León and Palencia, in the archives of local entities and the archive of the Museum of Steel and Mining. of Castilla y León.
Changes in energy production models have led to the closure of coal and the beginning of a decarbonization process, cwith the closure of companies and the reconversion of mining infrastructure. To confront this process that affects mining basins, the European Union has launched initiatives that take shape in a Territorial Plan and an Economic Funds Program called Just Transition.
This ambitious program, which reinforces previous projects developed in the mining regions, represents important support for new sources of investment and activities in all economic and social areas. Among them, the one that affects the mining industrial heritage is of special relevance, both in its infrastructure and in its documentary and human aspects. In accordance with this program, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports has promoted two extensive medium-term development projects. One intended for the enhancement of the territorial system of cultural heritage in the mining basins and another on digitization of the basins’ documentary collections.
The project
This digitalization process includes the sorting, classification, inventory and digitization of mining files, with the creation of accessible resources. This will mean the conservation of the documentation in good physical condition and its availability to be integrated into the archive databases of Castilla y León, which establishes criteria of homogeneity in the treatment and classification of documents with identification metadata, as well as accessibility, of in accordance with the regulations on historical documentation.
The project that is currently being initiated will work with the collections and documentary series of the historical archives of León and Palencia, with the documentary collection of the municipality of Fabero, in which there have been several mining operations and preserves an exceptional cultural heritage that has been recognized as mining industrial complex in 2021and especially, with the funds that are kept in the Museum of Steel and Mining of Castilla y León based in Sabero, created in 2008 by the Government of Castilla y León.
This museum center is installed in the San Blas Ironworks warehouse that also includes the blast furnaces, currently in the process of restoration by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports. It constitutes the leading institution and center related to mining industrial heritage in Castilla y León and is integrated into the European Industrial Heritage Route -ERIH-. As a cultural institution, the Museum, in addition to the cultural, educational and social activities it develops, has promoted and manages the Historical Mining Archive of Castilla y León, made up of a social network of more than 600 collaborators, with a progressive growth plan, by acquisitions, donations or deposits, and digitization of their funds. In its history, the Museum of Steel and Mining, with this diversity of types of documentation income, has become guarantor of conservation of a delicate heritage, establishing security, custody and organization protocols, as well as being an exceptional reference center for the documentation of companies that have been pioneers and representatives of mining activity in the provinces of León and Palencia, preserving thousands of documents, plans and photographs.
#Memory #era #Castilla #León #digitize #years #mining #activity #León #Palencia #basins
