(Fwd) UNESCO charter on preservation of digital heritage

[Moldovan Istvan]

Tájékoztatásul továbbítom.

István

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Date sent:              Tue, 21 Oct 2003 11:44:35 +0200
Send reply to:          Preservation/Conservation of documentary Heritage in
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From:                   Ecpa <Ecpa at BUREAU.KNAW.NL>
Subject:                UNESCO charter on preservation of digital heritage
To:                     EPIC-LST at NIC.SURFNET.NL

At the end of the 32nd session of UNESCO's General Conference UNESCO
issued the following press release:

UNESCO adopts a convention on the preservation of intangible heritage
and declaration of human genetic data

Paris, October 17 - Five standard-setting instruments, including the
International Convention on the Preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
and the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, were adopted by the
32nd session of UNESCO's General Conference that ended today, and
which was marked by the return of the United States of America to the
Organization and by the adoption of a real-growth budget of US$ 610 million
for 2004-2005.

The full text of the release can be found at:
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php@URL_ID=16797&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.
html

One of the adopted instruments is the Charter on the Preservation of the
Digital Heritage.
Quote from the press release:
"The Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage is a declaration of
principle designed to assist Member States in preparing national policies to
preserve, and provide access to, digital heritage. The digital heritage
consists of unique resources of human knowledge and expression, be they
 cultural, educational, scientific or administrative, as well as technical,
legal, medical and other kinds of information created digitally or converted
into digital form from existing analogue resources. This fast growing heritage
is particularly at risk because of the rapid obsolescence of the
hardware and software with which it is generated and preserved. The Charter
recognizes that this material constitutes a common heritage and that its
preservation requires urgent measures."

The text of the draft Charter can be downloaded in English, French, Spanish,
Russian, Arabic and Chinese. Search the UNESDOC database for the document
with code:
32 C/28

ECPA Secretariat

European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA)
P.O. Box 19121, NL-1000 GC  Amsterdam,
visiting address: c/o KNAW, Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29,
NL-1011 JV  Amsterdam, The Netherlands
tel. ++31 - 20 - 551 08 39   fax  ++31 - 20 - 620 49 41
URL: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/
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