National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 64 | August 2003


Saving our Digital Heritage: NLA Part of UNESCO Campaign

A colour photograph of the participants at the UNESCO Regional Consultation Meeting for Asia and the Pacific, Canberra. held at the National Library of Australia in November 2002

Participants at the UNESCO Regional Consultation Meeting for Asia and the Pacific, Canberra. Held at the National Library of Australia in November 2002

Considering that the disappearance of heritage in whatever form constitutes an impoverishment of the heritage of all nations…
Recognising that … resources of information and creative expression are increasingly produced, distributed, accessed and maintained in digital form, creating a new legacy—the digital heritage…
Understanding
that this digital heritage is at risk of being lost and that its preservation for the benefit of present and future generations is an urgent issue of worldwide concern…

So begins an important new document being prepared for the General Conference of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Draft Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage is one element in an international campaign to maintain continuity of access to the heritage of digital information.

Another key element of the campaign is the dissemination of practical guidelines on digital preservation. While the Draft Charter is a ‘why’ document—outlining why the digital heritage is important, why governments and organisations need to take action—the Guidelines are more concerned with ‘how’.

The National Library of Australia has been centrally involved in this UNESCO campaign over the past 18 months. Through the Council of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL), a resolution was proposed for UNESCO consideration that gave impetus to the campaign. The National Library was commissioned in 2002 to draft the Guidelines, help prepare the Draft Charter, and organise the first of a series of regional consultation meetings to be held in various centres around the world in late 2002 and early 2003.

The preservation guidelines on the UNESCO Communication and Information website

The preservation guidelines on the UNESCO Communication
and Information website
[Click on the image to go to the web page]

The Guidelines have been recently completed and published on the UNESCO CI (Communication and Information) website. While addressing technical and practical issues, they are written in non-technical language and focus on principles behind the preservation-related decisions needed throughout the life of digital information. They are highly relevant to the library and archives sectors, but also important wherever digital resources of enduring value are being produced.

The Regional Consultation Meetings associated with the Draft Charter and Guidelines were held in: Canberra (for Asia and the Pacific); Managua, Nicaragua (for Latin America and the Caribbean); Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (for Africa); Riga, Latvia (for the Baltic States); and in Budapest, Hungary (for Eastern Europe).

All of the meetings confirmed the need for urgent action, and the great distance still to be travelled before preservation of digital heritage is a reality in most countries of the world. In total, around 175 experts and stakeholders from 86 countries participated in the five meetings— representing libraries, records archives, museums, audio-visual archives, data archives, producers and publishers of digital content, lawyers, universities and academies, governments, standardisation agencies, community development organisations, computer industries, and researchers.
—Colin Webb, Director, Preservation Services

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: pcliff@nla.gov.au