The World's Memory : the Protection of Documentary Heritage

This article broadly sketches out the main features of « The World's Memory », a programme launched by Unesco in order to preserve important heritage documents that are at risk around the world, to liberalize access to them, to raise awareness of their value and to distribute material derived from them. The criteria used for the registration of such documents and for the selection of specific projects are described and the technical, legal and financial scope is briefly outlined. Several projects are examined including those concerning the manuscripts of the National Library of Prague, the Radziwill Chronicle at St. Petersburg, the astronomy manuscripts from the Kandilli Observatory at Istanbul, some manuscripts held by the National Library of Cairo, 3,000 African postcards from the colonial period, a project entitled « The Memory of Russia », etc.
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