Government Ministries, National Commissions and other interested stakeholders will receive technical advice and assistance in establishing National Memory of the World committees and registers next week.

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Library Consultant/Researcher Elizabeth F. Watson will pay a three day visit to the Territory next week from the 13-16 to provide consultancy in this area.

The Memory of the World Programme was established in 1992 by UNESCO. It is  an international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction.

The programme aims to preserve the documentary heritage of the world and to improve access to it. To help achieve these aims awareness of the importance of the documentary heritage is being raised with both the public and governments.

In light of this, the consultant will meet with government officials who have in-country responsibility for UNESCO, particularly with regard to the Memory of the World project, and she will meet with information professionals (archivists, librarians, museologists), historians and others with an intimate knowledge of the documentary heritage of the Territory.

Discussions will be held on the memory of the World programme, including the establishment of a national committee who will identify and select documentary heritage of the Territory suitable for nomination and prepare nominations for registering these documents in national, regional and international MoW registers. Training sessions will be done on how to complete the nomination form.

So far more than 57 countries have entries of over 120 collections on the Memory of the World Register.