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UNESCO and Archives at Risk: Safeguarding Documentary Heritage

UNESCO and Archives at Risk: Safeguarding Documentary Heritage. The Right to Know, the Right to History. Milan Kundera (in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1981): 'the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history '.

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UNESCO and Archives at Risk: Safeguarding Documentary Heritage

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  1. UNESCO and Archives at Risk: Safeguarding Documentary Heritage

  2. The Right to Know, the Right to History • Milan Kundera (in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1981): 'the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history'.

  3. UNESCO’s Constitution • Maintain, increase and diffuse knowledge: By assuring the conservation and protection of the world’s inheritance of books, works of art and monuments of history and science, and recommending to the nations concerned the necessary international conventions;

  4. Holdings: AG 1International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation

  5. Archive Group AG 3 - Preparatory Commission of UNESCO

  6. The Activities • Sources to the History of Nations • Technical expert missions • Capacity-building, including archival schools • Facilitating reflections on restitution of archives (decolonization process) • Microfilm-projects – in particular in Latin America

  7. The Activities continued… • RAMP-studies – reference documents • Databases and portals (CDS-ISIS) • Memory of the World – 1992 onwards • Access to Memory (ICA-AtoM) and Archivematica • UNESCO Endorsement of the Universal Declaration on Archives in 2011 • Digital Memory of the World 2012 – Vancouver Declaration • PERSIST: UNESCO Digital Strategy for Information Sustainability – development of a digital roadmap

  8. UNESCO Cultural Heritage Conventions • Protecting Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague Convention, 1954, and later protocols) • Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) • Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) • UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (1995) • Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)

  9. 2015 Symposium: The Idea • International Symposium: ‘Safeguarding Documentary Heritage in Danger’ • Forum for discussion – compare, review, analyze and discuss concepts, strategies and practices • Tentatively planned 19-20 Feb 2015, 30-40 participants with diverse heritage preservation background • Looking at the whole ‘disaster cycle’, before, during and after a conflict

  10. 2015 Symposium: Expected Outcomes • Better understanding of concepts and issues • Analyze and share experiences and existing programs and strategies • Emergency Action Plan for Safeguarding Endangered Documentary Heritage • Development of guidelines on safeguarding documentary heritage and risk management (including contingency plans) • Publication and dissemination of guidelines • Conventions : Signed and respected • Strengthening of MoW committee network

  11. Thank you !!! Questions? Jens Boel j.boel@unesco.org www.unesco.org/archives

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