Recently, the UNSECO Archives celebrated World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. This particular Audiovisual Heritage Day was marked with the launch of a two-year project, in cooperation with the Japanese government and Picturae BV, to digitize audiovisual materials within the UNSECO Archives’ collection that had begun to show their age. Through this initiative, people will be able to access these resources online. The hope is that, “The collections also document more than UNESCO itself. UNESCO’s records provide evidence of a history of international cooperation; of individual countries and newly independent states participating in and developing activities relating to education, communication, culture and sciences. With the ability to readily search and discover records within digital catalogues, users will be able to increase and extend the use of UNESCO’s invaluable documentary heritage” (UNSECO November, 2018).
Currently accessible online are 45 hours of 16mm film from the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s; 30 hours of video from the 1980’s; and 8,000 hours of audio recordings from the 1940’s to 1980’s. These digitized collections join 560,000 governmental body records and 5,000 photographic images documenting UNSECO’s efforts starting in the 1940’s.
World Day of Audiovisual Heritage is just one of many UNESCO celebration days and preservation-related initiatives. For more information on other UNESCO Heritage celebrations, visit https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/international-days, and for more information about the World Day of Audiovisual Heritage project, visit https://digital.archives.unesco.org/en/
Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2018) Digitizing our shared UNESCO history: Collections. Retrieved from: https://digital.archives.unesco.org/en/collection.
International Directory of National Archives 