MEMORY OF THE WORLD Documentary Heritage in Asia and the Pacific

"“Why do we need to preserve and access documentary heritage?
Unless we do consciously preserve it, the memory eventually disappears and society becomes trapped in collective amnesia. The desire to know the past has been as strong as the desire to record the present. So the handing down of documentary memory from one generation to the next has been a preoccupation of societies since the beginning of recorded history; a tautology, for what we know about the past we can only know because it was documented and transmitted.
“Memory of the World” defines preservation as the sum total of the steps necessary to ensure the permanent accessibility – forever – of documentary heritage. And that means preservation is a never ending task. Nothing has ever been preserved – it is only being preserved. In the long run, and sometimes the short run as well, preservation has to be a deliberate effort.” - Dr Ray Edmondson, Chair of MOWCAP (2005 - 2014)

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