The Mundaneum’s Universal Bibliographic Repertory among the 54 new additions to the “Memory of the World” Registry in 2013

Alongside documents concerning the life and work of Ernesto Che Guevara, or the collection of witness reports by victims of the Holocaust preserved at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem (1954-2004), the Universal Bibliographic Repertory of the Mundaneum is among the 54 new additions to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Registry, approved wednesday June 19 by the General Director, Irina Bokova.

Today, the Memory of the World Registry includes 299 documents and documentary collections that come from five different continents, and are preserved in different medium; from stone to celluloids, and from old manuscripts to audiovisual recordings. The vision of the Memory of the World Programme comes from the idea that the documentary patrimony belongs to all, and that it should be preserved and protected for the benefit of every individual, being permanently accessible to all without any obstacles, and remaining bound to cultural specificities and practices. The mission of the Memory of the World Programme consists of:

• Facilitating the conservation of the global documentary patrimony with the most appropriate techniques,
• Helping to ensure access to this global documentary patrimony,
• Encouraging acknowledgement, everywhere in the world, of the existence and the benefits of the documentary patrimony.

You'll find other submissions to the Unesco Memory of the world register here.

Beginning in the summer of 2013, the Mundaneum prepares Mons, a European capital of culture in 2015. Agent of 6 km of running archives, the Mundaneum is among the most important private archival centers in the Federation of Wallonia-Brussels. In order to ensure the best conditions for conserving and accessing the archives, as well as hosting researchers and the general public, renovations at the Mundaneum are scheduled for a period of 18 months starting in July 2013. The institution will reopen its doors in the spring of 2015 with all of its new installations and an exhibit dedicated to the history and future of information technologies and communication. Between now and the time of the new opening, the activities of the Mundaneum will continue in different locations thanks to the help of the numerous partners that have come together in the last two years and among them: the collaboration with Google.