Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

Opening Session / Séance d’ouverture

Opening Session - Séance d’Ouverture

UNESCO, which is increasingly aware of the importance of regional approaches, pays more and more attention to find new ways and means of increasing archival cooperation.

It is evident that the European experience of exchanging archival experiences, techniques and expertise in solving problems is of high interest to the international archival community. After the political transformation in Eastern Europe during the last years and in light of the latest developments in the European Community, the issues archives are confronted with are most challenging:- The need of new legal groundwork regulating the competence of statal administration, including the redistribution of competences in the archival work, particularly in Eastern Europe;- The questions of the property of archives and the role of the archives of the political parties in former communist countries;- Problems relating to the training of personnel according to regional and international standards;- Problems related to the role of informatics in archives and the crucial problems of preservation of the archival heritage.

All these questions are mutatis mutandis of international interest and European solutions in this respect which this conference will - no doubt - be discussing, will be most stimulating and encouraging for other regions. In addition, the panel devoted to the cooperation in the new economical regions in the western parts of Europe, and its implications on archives, as well as the panel on the mobility of archivists with its inherent problems and chances will certainly give stimulating results also to non-European archivists.

Let me single out one important aspect which is not directly in the scope of this conference but in which the European region has a very particular interest and need and which is closely linked to the basic function of archives: The safeguarding of the collections, the safeguarding of the memories stored in archives, which are in fact the memory of the world. After this conference, I continue my travel to Prague, in order to receive the first version of a demonstration compact disk containing a selection of the most precious documents held in the National Library in Prague. This CD-ROM has been produced within the framework of a new UNESCO program which is called Memory of the World.

Launched by UNESCO last year, it seeks to enable interested member states to preserve and share the most valuable collections through the application of new technologies. This concerns of course not only library collections, but also in a most urgent way archival collections, taking into consideration the uniqueness of the multitude of archival documents which are endangered. The program is now in its initial phase, a UNESCO world list of endangered archival and library collections will be established. Initially the activities will focus on three regions:

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