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Endorsement
of UNESCO Resolution on Digital Preservation
As current
president of the Society of American Archivists, I wish to join my colleagues
at the Association of Canadian Archivists and the National Archives and
Records Administration and add my endorsement to the UNESCO
Resolution on Digital Preservation. I do this on behalf of the Society,
its executive Council, and its membership. Founded in 1936, the Society
of American Archivists (SAA) is North America's oldest and largest national
archival professional association. SAA's mission is to serve the educational
and informational needs of more than 3,400 individual and institutional
members and to provide leadership to ensure the identification, preservation,
and use of records of historical value. As such, the issues raised in
this resolution resonate strongly with our professional and institutional
concerns.
The draft
resolution rightly recognizes the increasing ubiquity of digital forms
of cultural, scientific, and education information and the dangerous volatility
of such information. The recommendations in the resolution should lay
the foundation for positive moves towards the necessary policy and law
to ensure the long-term preservation of this information. This, in turn,
should give archivists, records managers, librarians, and other information
professionals the sort of support they will require "to find ways
to preserve these fragile, transient, and technology-dependent digital
records," as my Canadian colleagues so aptly put it.
This resolution
raises important issues with archivists and librarians and with society
in general with respect to the viability of modern human cultural memory
and we urge you support this resolution in whatever manner you are able.
Thank you
for your attention to this important matter.
—Steven
Hensen, SAA President
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