Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, warned today that the documentary heritage in many countries is at risk, calling for the need to digitize the heritage and make it available on the Internet.
Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, said: Documentary archives are under threat in many regions of the world, especially in developing countries. Thousands of paper documents have been destroyed by floods and fires over the years, and audio documents are no better, as they are also fragile. Magnetic tapes are deteriorating and machines that can read them are becoming rarer; Therefore, it is necessary to make a collective effort to preserve and digitize this document so that we do not lose it permanently.
The Director of UNESCO emphasized that digitizing the documentary heritage and publishing it on the Internet makes it accessible to all without endangering the original documents through tangible dealing with them; Since digitization is an expensive process, UNESCO supports libraries, archives and museums in Africa in particular and in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Sudan.
Audrey Azoulay indicated that over the past 30 years, UNESCO has formed national committees affiliated with the "Memory of the World" program in 94 countries, and since the beginning of last year the organization has helped about 40 countries to prepare public policies and develop the necessary capacities to inventory, protect and make documentary heritage available to all.
Sun, May. 28, 2023
