thumb|150px|right|Logo of the Memory of the World ProgrammeUNESCO's Memory of the World Programme is an international initiative launched to safeguard humanity's documentary heritage against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction.
It calls upon the
preservation of valuable archive holdings, library collections and private individual compendia all over the world for posterity, reconstituting dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and ensuring their wider accessibility and dissemination.
Background and the IAC
The program began in 1992 as a way to preserve and promote documentary heritage, which can be a single document, a collection, a holding or an archival fonds that is deemed to be of such significance as to transcend the boundaries of time and culture.
This recorded memory reflects the diversity of languages, people, and cultures.
UNESCO, the world agency responsible for the protection of the world’s
cultural and
natural heritage, realized the need to protect such fragile yet important constituent of man’s heritage. Thus, the Memory of the World Programme was established, with the aim of preserving and digitizing humanity’s documentary heritage.
The program is administered by a body known as by the International Advisory Committee, or IAC, whose 14 members are appointed by the UNESCO Director-General.
The IAC is in charge with the formulation of major policies, including the technical, legal and financial framework for the program. Regular meetings were held by the IAC in its interim capacity beginning in 1993 to sustain the momentum gained by the program, culminating in the creation of the Memory of the World Register during its second meeting in 1995,
with the inaugural batch of documents being inscribed on the Register in 1997, after the statutes creating the IAC as a standing committee took effect.
Memory of the World Register
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was used to disseminate to the political community the first-ever
French Constitution. This also formed the basis of the
United Nations Declaration of 1948.
The Memory of the World Register is a compendium of documents, manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, library, and archive holdings of universal value.
Inscription on the Register leads to the better conservation of the documentary heritage, by tapping on the program’s networks of experts to exchange information and raise resources for the preservation, digitization, and dissemination of the material.
It also aims to use state-of-the-art technologies to enable wider accessibility and diffusion of the heritage.
Any person or organizations could nominate a documentary item for inscription on the Register. Following the full documentation of the item’s description, origin, world significance, and contemporary state of conservation, the candidature file is assessed by the IAC during its meetings. The body utilizes a set of criteria in examining each of the nominations:
- Influence: The heritage should have had a major influence on the history of the world, transcending the boundaries of a national culture.
- Time: The material should reflect a period of momentous change in world affairs or contribute to our understanding of the world at a critical point in history.
- Place: The heritage should contain important information about any particular locality or region which has contributed to major developments in world history or culture.
- People: The document should have a special association with the life or works of a person or people who have made an outstanding contribution to world history or culture.
- Subject: The heritage should document, in an outstanding way, an important subject or major theme of world history or culture.
- Form and Style: The document should represent an outstanding form or style.
- Social Value: The material should possess cultural, social or spiritual value which transcends a particular national culture.
The nomination must also meet conditions of integrity (the degree of completeness) and rarity (uniqueness).
To date, the IAC has placed 193 documentary items of patrimony on the Register. Inscriptions on the Register take place during the IAC’s biennial meetings, every odd year:
Of the 194 documentary heritage listed on the Register, 94, or nearly half, is accounted for by the Europe and North America region, shared by 33 countries/territories. The high ratio of representation from Europe and North America reflects the large volume of works produced by the region, as well as a greater emphasis on Western forms of subjects and styles in the documentary circle.
In response to the worldwide scale of the Register program, some countries or groups of countries have also established national (i.e. national registers) and regional counterparts, resulting in a three-tier Register, which has been supported by the Memory of the World Programme. This allows for the better administration of documentary item.
Jikji Prize
The Jikji Prize was established in 2004 in cooperation with the South Korean government to further promote the objectives of the Memory of the World Programme, and to commemorate the 2001 inscription of the country's
Jikji on the Register.
The award, which includes a cash prize of $30,000 from the Korean government, recognizes institutions which have contributed to the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage.
The prize is awarded biennially, during the meeting of the IAC, beginning in 2005
.
Recipients
- 2007: Austrian Phonogrammarchiv (Vienna)
