Documentary data collection: an initial step for information management in the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage

Architectural heritage documentation is a preliminary step to address any heritage conservation and management problem. However, data collection is often isolated resulting in lack of communication between different data types and incomplete documentation. This text examines the wide-ranging collection of technical and administrative documentation concerning to the successive conservation-restoration works carried out in the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla de Yuso (La Rioja, Spain) since its declaration as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. The main objective is to propose a document management system which can support an efficient long-lasting safeguard and also allows new uses and additional values. This aim entails the consideration of information retrieval (when the documents are scattered across many archives), classification (a normalised and comprehensive classification chart is lacking for the documents generated in conservation-restoration), and description (a list of metadata needs to be benefit of future users and any other additional uses).