Archive:
IFLA Core Activity on Preservation and Conservation (PAC)
Publications
Annual Report
1999 |
1998 |
1997 |
1996
Partnerships
JICPA (Joint IFLA/ICA Committee on Preservation in Africa)
JICPA is the joint ICA/IFLA Committee for Preservation in Africa. Since its creation in 1996, several training preservation workshops supported by UNESCO took place in Africa in order to raise awareness on preservation issues among African librarians and archivists.
Surveys
- JICPA Survey on the Safeguard of Newspapers and Periodicals in Africa
The IFLA Section on Newspapers together with IFLA-PAC takes up again the JICPA Survey on the Safeguard of Newspapers and Periodicals in Africa which was conducted by IFLA-PAC in 2001. The Section will limit the new survey to newspapers only, published in Africa (retrospective holdings as well as current files). The newspaper is by definition an ephemeral item which is normally printed on poor oversize paper with poor ink, whose preservation is precarious. So it becomes urgent to safeguard the holdings, for instance by transfer to another medium, preferably without any kind of previous expensive restoration. In this regard it is absolutely necessary to locate and know about newspaper holdings preserved in Africa in national or university libraries as well as in national archives.
A simplified questionnaire, a single formulary sheet in English and French, has been mailed electronically or by fax to the person involved in each institution. The questionnaire was also be mounted on IFLANET and announced in « ALP Project Report », in « International Preservation News » and in the Section's « Newsletter », so as to reach a large number of professionals concerned by newspapers.
Thanks to precise replies the IFLA Section on Newspapers will be able to list holdings, possible gaps, equipment needs, microfilm and/or digitisation needs, in order to work out priority actions and funding requirements. It is therefore important that African colleagues involved should provide as complete replies as possible.
UNESCO
Partnership between PAC and UNESCO operates particularly in the following field of activity:
Surveys
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Worldwide Survey of Digitised Collections in Major Cultural Institutions: an IFLA PAC/UAP Joint Project
The IFLA Core Activities on Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP) worked together, on behalf of UNESCO, to undertake a survey of digitisation programmes in major cultural institutions, in order to establish a 'virtual library' of digitised collections worldwide.
Many national libraries and other institutions are undertaking or planning digitisation programmes for some or all of their major cultural collections, whether it be for preservation purposes or to increase access to the documents.
However, a comprehensive worldwide listing of digitised library collections did not exist, and it was the task of this IFLA project to identify digitised collections of national importance worldwide. The project funded by UNESCO had links to its Memory of the World programme since it also attempted to identify collections which are of world significance and therefore suitable for inclusion in the Memory of the World register. The dual aims of Memory of the World - the preservation of documents and collections, and the improvement in access to them - coincide with the aims of the two core activities of IFLA which are jointly undertaking the project: Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP).
The UNESCO/IFLA Directory of Digitised Collections takes the form of a freely accessible database on the UNESCO website. The project began in 1998 with the distribution of questionnaires to national libraries to gather information on their digitisation programmes. The database consists of a searchable listing of all the collections, together with clickable links to take the user directly to the website of the digitised collection. Individual items within a collection are not listed, but detailed information about the contents of each collection are available from the collection website.
