UNESCO'S Memory of the World Programme

ABSTRACT

UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme is one response to the challenges of preserving cultural heritage. This paper describes its activities, indicates its relationship to other large-scale programs to promote understanding of the importance of preserving heritage, introduces the Australian Memory of the World Program as a case study, and examines some of the issues surrounding the program.

INTRODUCTION

This issue of Library Trends examines how cultural heritage preservation is changing around the world because of the stresses and levels of change caused by such things as civil unrest, natural disasters, and inequitable distribution of resources. As Tessa Morris-Suzuki (2005) notes, we are in a period of global mobility and rapidly changing media, with consequent major changes in how we think about history:

   The crisis of history, then, is not a simple matter of amnesia.
   Rather, it reflects a profound dilemma: in an age of global
   mobility and multiple, rapidly changing media, how do we pass on
   our knowledge of the past from one generation to the next? How do
   we relate our lives in the present to the events of the past? Which
   bits of the past do we claim as our own, and in what sense do they
   become our property? (p. 6)

It is important that we preserve our memories, a point made by numerous authors in different contexts over many years. W. James Booth (2006), in an exploration of the relationship between memory and identity, reminds us that "memory is essential to the coherence and enduringness of the community (or person), to its boundaries and persistence, in short, to its identity" (p. xiii), and that with this come the responsibilities that are attached to memory. Another common theme in the discussions about why we preserve memory is that it links us to our past: "If history is civilization's collective memory, then preservation aids memory and sustains history by linking us to the past in a persuasive way" (Cloonan, 2004, p. 36). UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme is one response to these issues. This paper describes its activities, indicates its relationship to other large-scale programs to promote understanding of the importance of preserving heritage, introduces the Australian Memory of the World Program as a case study, and examines some of the issues surrounding the program.

WHAT IS THE MEMORY OF THE WORLD PROGRAMME?

The Memory of the World Programme is introduced by these words:

   Documentary heritage reflects the diversity of languages, peoples
   and cultures. It is the mirror of the world and its memory. But
   this memory is fragile. Every day, irreplaceable parts of this
   memory disappear forever. UNESCO has launched the Memory of the
   World Programme to guard against collective amnesia calling upon
   the preservation of the valuable archive holdings and library
   collections all over the world ensuring their wide dissemination.
   (UNESCO, n.d.)

It is important to recognize that the Memory of the World Programme is aimed not only at safeguarding documentary heritage judged to be valuable (a contested term that is examined later), but also at promoting both access to the selected material and awareness of the need to preserve it. Although these latter aims are often accorded less importance in countries whose library, archives, and museum systems are well developed, this relative emphasis should not be taken for granted as universal. A Latin American and Caribbean perspective emphasizes all three aspects equally in describing the Memory of the World Programme as "an international effort to safeguard the at risk documentary heritage, to democratise its access, and to raise awareness about its importance" (Vannini, 2004, p. 293).

Many of the strengths, and not a few of the problems, of the program arise from its structure, which is, therefore, described here in some detail. The basis and the primary product of the Memory of the World Programme--its raison d'etre--are its registers of documentary heritage identified as being significant--of world significance for the international register, of regional significance for the regional registers, and of national significance for the national registers. To support these registers international, regional, and national committees have been established.

At the international level there is a secretariat based at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and an International Advisory Committee (IAC), which meets biannually; a five-person bureau acts as an executive committee in the periods between the IAC meetings. The IAC has three subcommittees: one for the register, which assesses nominations for the international register, one for technology, and one for marketing. Ray Edmondson (2005) reminds us:

   From the outset the Memory of the World (MOW) Programme was
   conceived as a three-tier structure, with committees operating at
   the national, regional and international level. Regional committees
   would fill the space between the overarching mandate of the
   International Advisory Committee (IAC) and the national committees.
   (section 1.1)