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2nd Inter-regional Conference for the Memory of the World (MoW) held in Korea, 5-8 November 2019

The 2nd Inter-regional Conference for the Memory of the World (MoW): Preserving & Providing Access to Digital Heritage was held from the 5-8 November, 2019, in Gwangju and Daegu, Republic of Korea.  The conference was organised by UNESCO Bangkok with the support of the Asia Culture Center (ACC), the Asia Culture Institute (ACI), the Commemorative Association of the National Debt Redemption Movement, and the Memory of the World Committee for the Asia Pacific (MOWCAP).

The conference brought together over 100 delegates and speakers from 28 countries, including: Australia; Bhutan; Cambodia; Canada; Côte D’ivoire; Chile; China; Egypt; Indonesia; Iran; Jamaica; Japan; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Malaysia; Mexico; Mongolia; Myanmar; Philippines; the Republic of Korea; Samoa; Senegal; Singapore; Switzerland; Vietnam; the United Kingdom; the Unites States of America; and Uzbekistan. A majority of the delegates are members of the MoW Committees from Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa

Within the overall framework of the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form (2015), the conference aimed to bring together experts and MoW Committees from Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa to discuss strategies and initiatives for the preservation and access to digital heritage, including the latest policy tools and guidelines.

In addition, the meeting aimed to build on the outcomes of the 1st Inter-regional Conference for the MoW held in Panama in October 2018, to further enhance cooperation between the established regional MoW Committees: Memory of the World Committee for Asia/Pacific (MOWCAP), the African Regional Committee for Memory of the World (ARCMOW), and UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (MOWLAC).

The conference program can be accessed here:

ProgramDownload

The conference proceedings can be accessed here:

ProceedingsDownload

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Disaster Preparedness Workshop

Attendees

UNESCO Japanese Funds in Trust (J-FIT) in partnership with PARBICA (Pacific Regional Branch of the International Council of Archives) provided funding for a very well attended workshop on Disaster Preparedness, Response and Recovery. The workshop was held in Adelaide on 25 October 2019 and was part of the “Designing the Archive” conference.

The workshop was attended by 31 archivists and recordkeepers from Australia, Hong Kong, Kiribati, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, The Gambia, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The workshop started with a presentation from Dianne Macaskill, vice-chairperson of MOWCAP. She explained that the purpose of the J-FIT was to progress the UNESCO Global Framework for sustainable preservation of documentary heritage through disaster risk reduction and management.

The workshop was based on three guidelines from the PARBICA Recordkeeping Toolkit for Good Governance. The guidelines 20-22 covered Developing a Disaster Preparedness Plan, Developing a Disaster Response Plan and Developing a Disaster Recovery Plan. These and other toolkit guidelines are consistent with achieving Memory of the World objectives and with the MOWCAP Pacific Action Plan on the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Documentary Heritage. The action plan was developed at the PARBICA biennial meeting in Suva, Fiji in 2017. One of the actions was to implement the PARBICA Recordkeeping Toolkit modules on disaster preparedness when they became available.

Another MOWCAP Pacific Action Plan activity was to link the PARBICA Toolkit guidelines to the UNESCO Recommendation so that there is a pathway for Pacific National Archives to implement the Recommendation. Dianne Macaskill launched a draft copy of the pathway and informed participants that it would shortly be on the MOWCAP website and that feedback would be appreciated before it is finalised. The Toolkit covers many of the guidelines needed by Pacific National Archives to implement the Recommendation. One of the significant gaps that has been identified is the availability of access tools.

The facilitators for the workshop were Brandon Oswald and Emilie Leumas. Brandon Oswald is the Founder/Executive director of the non-profit organization Island Culture Archival Support. He has worked on records preservation and disaster preparedness projects throughout the Pacific. Emilie Leumas is a certified archivist and records manager and is the Director of Archives and Records for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. She received national and international recognition for her efforts in disaster recover after Hurricane Katrina.

The facilitators started the meeting by asking the participants to describe disasters they had experienced in their organisations. Many of the participants gave examples of needing to deal with flood and water damage to archives and records.

The approach taken by the facilitators was very practical. For example, their presentation covered the steps based on the PARBICA Toolkit Guidelines for writing a Disaster Preparedness Plan. The importance of planning before a disaster was emphasized throughout the workshop, including identifying vital records and forming relationships with people who could assist after a disaster.

The afternoon of the workshop was spent doing practical exercises such as practicing recovery treatment for wet letters, videos, documents, maps etc. The participants gave very positive feedback on this aspect of the training as they appreciated the opportunity to gain experience handling and treating damaged documents in a learning environment.

All the participants including those funded through UNESCO J-FIT had the opportunity to attend a range of other sessions during the conference week. These included PARBICA’s Recordkeeping for Good Governance Toolkit – Identifying vital business records for government departments; How to conduct outreach activities with a limited budget; The diversity of contexts:colonisation, languages and geography as barriers to access; Same software, different design: implementation of AtoM with limited resources; Reconciliation and Decolonization of National Archives and Co-designing a low-tech digital community archive.

The feedback from participants at the workshop was very, very positive, both about the conference and the workshop. It provided a lot of opportunities to think about planning and managing for disaster recovery as well as the opportunity to develop more confidence to recover from a disaster should one occur. The workshop finished with a thank you to UNESCO, J-FIT and MOWCAP for the funding that enabled the training to be delivered.

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Disaster Preparedness Workshop

There is free registration for the PARBICA Disaster Preparedness Workshop to be held on Friday 25 October at the “Designing the Archive” conference in Adelaide, Australia. To enquire about registration contact parbica.treasurer@naa.gov.au.

Preference will be given to PARBICA members and to delegates from SIDS. The workshop is based on the award winning PARBICA toolkit and is funded by the Japanese Funds in Trust (JIT) in partnership with the UNESCO Memory of the World program.

More information is available on the conference website

National Workshop on Awareness Raising on UNESCO Memory of the World Program, 12-13 September 2019, Vietnam

The National training workshop on “Awareness raising on UNESCO Memory of the World Program” organized by Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with People’s Committee of Bac Giang province opened this morning, September 12, 2019, at Bac Giang city.

Attending the workshop were Mr. Le Hoai Trung, Member of Central Party Committee, Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of Vietnam National Commission for UNESCO; Mr. Michael Croft, UNESCO Head of Office in Vietnam, PhD. Vu Thi Minh Huong, Vice Chairperson of UNESCO Memory of the World Committee of Asia-Pacific (MOWCAP), Mr. Andrew Henderson, MOWCAP Secretary General, Ms. Helen Jarvis, Acting Chairman of the Sub-Committee for Registration of Documents MOWCAP, Mr. Le Anh Duong, Vice Chairman of Bac Giang People’s Committee and 130 representatives from museums, archives and libraries from Bac Giang province and across Vietnam.

The seminar will be run from September 12-13 2019, and will include a site visit to the Vinh Nghiem Pagoda woodblock collection, inscribed on the MOWCAP register in 2012: https://mowcaparchives.org/items/show/94

MOWCAP joins the Glocal Humanities in the Era of Hyperconnectivity Conference, Daegu, Republic of Korea, 6-7 September 2019.

Kwibae Kim, Chair of MOWCAP, and Andrew Henderson, Secretary-General of MOWCAP, participated in the recent conference  Glocal Humanities in the Era of Hyperconnectivity. The conference was held at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, and was organized by the Commemorative Association of the National Debt Redemption Movement, Kyungpook National University and the Korea Association of Digital Humanities.

This  seminar aimed to review international trends in digital humanities research in relation to the rapidly emerging AI technology and the utilization of big data in research programs. In this context, Kwibae Kim and Andrew Henderson, addressed various aspects of the UNESCO MoW Program in the context of digital heritage and preservation, including the role of the UNESCO Recommendation on Documentary Heritage, as well as open source archival description tools such as the Atom (Access to Memory) system.

A further theme of the meeting was the on establishing digital archives, especially in the context of the recent initiatives by the Commemorative Association of the National Debt Redemption Movement to create a digital archive of their collection, which was inscribed on the UNESCO MoW Register in 2017 (http://www.gukchae.com/eng2/main.aspx).

The papers delivered can be accessed here:

Andrew Henderson_Memory of the World in the Digital Age- Bridging the Gap between Global Policy and PracticeDownload
4-session2-1, Kim KwibaeDownload

Sub-Regional Meeting for the Identification and Exchange of Documentary Heritage of Central and Western Asia

The UNESCO Tehran Office, the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO, the National Library and Archives of Iran, and the Iranian National MoW Committee for UNESCO, have cooperated to hold the Sub-Regional Meeting for the Identification and Exchange of Documentary Heritage, from the 3-4 September in Tehran, Iran.

The event brought together delegates from National MoW Committees and National archives and libraries from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.  The objective of the meeting was to develop cooperation for joint MoW nominations, identify commonalities of documentary heritage in the region (particularly relating to the Silk Road), and increase cooperation between National MoW Committees in the region.

Prior to the meeting delegates completed a survey of documentary heritage relating to the Silk Road that exists at the national level in libraries, archives, museums, government repositories and private collections. The delegates submitted a report on the results of their survey during the meeting that can be accessed here.

The objective of the survey was to identify collections of significance relating to the Silk Road, that can become part of a national, international or regional Memory of the World nomination, including the potential for a joint nomination. In addition, this survey aimed help identify areas of commonality that could form the basis of wider cooperation projects, such as digital archives/platforms, academic research, preservation initiatives etc.

Andrew Henderson, Secretary-General of MOWCAP, was invited to facilitate the meeting. MOWCAP’s participation in the meeting was made possible through the generous support of the Asia Culture Center, Korea.

Call for speakers: Preserving and providing access to digital heritage at 2nd Inter-regional Conference for the Memory of the World

5-8 November, 2019, Republic of Korea: To support the preservation and access to the rich documentary heritage, including digital heritage, held in libraries, archives, museums and private collections from across the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form (2015) is an important standard-setting instrument.

To implement the Recommendation at the national and institutional levels, UNESCO organized a series of consultations in 2017-2018 across the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, involving delegates from more than 80 countries. In 2018, the 1st Inter-regional Conference for the Memory of the World was held, bringing together the different regions to discuss the implementation of the Recommendation and to exchange experiences and ideas.

The results of the consultation showed that while a number of important initiatives are taking place in regions relating to analogue documentary heritage, preserving digital heritage is a major challenge, with limited knowledge, expertise and guidelines available on the topic. This also extends to access, with outdated copyright laws, a lack of open access policies, and limited use of free and open-source software being key issues. 

At the global level, UNESCO and international partners are developing a number of important policy guidelines, tools and strategies relating to the preservation of digital documentary heritage. These include the Digital Strategy for Information Sustainability (PERSIST) initiative; UNESCO/PERSIST Guidelines for the Selection of Digital Heritage for Long-Term Preservation; UNESCO Software Heritage Initiative; and the Executive Guide on Digital Preservationdeveloped by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) in cooperation with UNESCO/PERSIST.

Conference objectives:

In this context, the conference bridges the gap between developments at the global, regional, national and organization levels for digital heritage preservation, and provides clear information to Memory of the World Committees from Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean on strategies and initiatives they can use. 

Following the conference, this information will be disseminated to national level stakeholders in government, archives, libraries, museums and the private sector through existing national and regional Memory of the World (MoW) Committee structures.

The meeting will also provide an opportunity for UNESCO MoW National Committees to report back on challenges and opportunities for digital heritage preservation, which is expected to lead to informal developments at the global level.

In addition, the meeting will build on the outcomes of the 1st Inter-regional Conference for the MoW held in Panama in October 2018, to further enhance cooperation between the established regional MoW Committees: Memory of the World Committee for Asia/Pacific (MOWCAP), the African Regional Committee for Memory of the World (ARCMOW), and UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (MOWLAC).

Conference themes:

The conference will be arranged around the five thematic areas of the UNESCO Recommendation: (1) Identification of digital documentary heritage, (2) Preservation of digital documentary heritage, (3) Access to digital documentary heritage, (4) Policy measures for digital documentary heritage, (5) National and international cooperation.

Within this framework, the conference speakers will share current tools, initiatives, guidelines and best practices covering:

Conditions for participation

Experts and delegates from National Memory of the World Committees in the Asia-Pacific are invited to attend as speakers. Travel and accommodation support will be available for selected speakers.

If you are interested in becoming a speaker, please complete the registration form and send it to Ms. Kamonwan Petchot, Communication and Information, UNESCO Bangkok (k.petchot [at] unesco [dot] org) no later than 10 September 2019 (COB, Bangkok time).

Attachment:

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Celebrates Documents 10th Year Anniversary of Inscription

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum curated a special exhibit this month to celebrate the 10th year of inscription of its archives left behind from the Khmer Rouge regime. Housed in the very site of terror itself, the archives are a central priority for the museum and are currently undergoing a process of digitization in a project funded by KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) and facilitated by UNESCO.

The temporary exhibit is located on the 2nd floor of Building A of the museum. Its panels feature the history of the founding of Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific (MOWCAP), its goals, an introduction to documentary heritage, a list of MOWCAP entries by country, and summaries of three Cambodian entries to the MOWCAP register: Panji, Reamker by Takrut, and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archive. A primary goal of the museum in opening this exhibition is to educate not only international visitors but especially Cambodian nationals. Nationwide knowledge of the Memory of the World program is scarce; thus, the exhibit hopes to familiarize Cambodians with the program, encourage Cambodians to take interest in the important archival work conducted by the museum and most importantly, foster collaboration.

As written on the panels, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archive consists of thousands of pages of forced confessions, biographies, official documents, photographs and more. They explicitly represent the inner workings of this dark era of Cambodian history and are crucial to the country’s remembrance, knowledge and reconciliation. Protection and dissemination of this invaluable evidence is needed for nationwide and worldwide awareness efforts. Thus, the inscription of the archives into the MOWCAP register helped further the museum’s efforts––a notable event to celebrate along with the museum’s 40th anniversary exhibit opening that month as well.

Tuol Sleng Exhibition 2019

Tuol Sleng Exhibition 2019

Tuol Sleng Exhibition 2019

Tuol Sleng Exhibition 2019

Announcements of the 2019 MOWCAP-ACC Small Grants Program

We are pleased to announce the results of the 2019 round of the MOWCAP-Asia Culture Center (ACC) Grants program. This year the grants will support fourteen (14) organisations from across the Asia-Pacific to safeguard and make their documentary heritage collections accessible.

Grants were awarded to organisations from Cambodia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. Applications were received from organisations from over 35 countries.

The generous financial support of the Asia Culture Center (ACC), and operational support of the Asia Culture Institute (ACI), has made these grants possible.

Statements from MOWCAP, ACC and the ACI:

Dr. Lee Jinsik, Acting President of the ACC, congratulated all the successful organisations and shared that “their work to capture the memory of our region, expressed through its diverse documentary heritage, ensures that future generations can appreciate and understand our regions varied and diverse history for many years to come.”

Mr. Lee Gi Pyo, President of the ACI, outlined that he was “very impressed with the quality and range of the applications. The Asia Culture Institute is proud to work with MOWCAP to support important documentary heritage initiatives and help bring the region’s documentary heritage projects to life.”

Mr. Kwibae Kim, Chair of MOWCAP, shared that “the projects supported under the 2019 MOWCAP-ACC, grants, and the large number of applications received from across the region, demonstrates the broad range of amazing work being done in our region to preserve and share our documentary heritage. I sincerely thank our partner, Asia Culture Center, whose support has made these grants possible, and also Asia Culture Institute, who have supported the administration of the grants through the MOWCAP Office. MOWCAP congratulates the successful organisations and encourages applications for the next funding round which will open in early 2020.”

[Read more…]

Regional Workshop Focuses on Shared Memory of the World

The Asia-Pacific region is home to rich and diverse documentary heritage reflecting the cultures, histories, traditions and values of its nations. Taking various forms – from manuscripts and woodblocks to photographs, stone inscriptions, sound recordings and film – this heritage is crucial to understanding the past and the present of our societies. It is also a source of inspiration, creativity and learning for future generations.

Diverse heritage brings nations together and contributes to a culture of peace. That is most clearly seen in the joint nomination process, whereby countries recognize common heritage that transcends national borders. One example is the Kulliyyāt-i Sa’di, the compendium of works by the 13th-century poet and writer Abu Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, known by the penname Sa’di, which is currently held at the National Library of Iran and inscribed on the Memory of the World Register. Given the shared heritage of the Persian-speaking communities in West Asia, the Kulliyyāt manuscript is now being considered for joint inscription with Afghanistan, with one version of the manuscript held in its National Archives.

[Read more…]

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