Speaking at the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt on 1 November 2003 the Italian writer Umberto Eco, in a speech titled Vegetal and Mineral Memory: The Future of Books, said, “Libraries, over the centuries, have been the most important way of keeping our collective wisdom. They were and still are a sort of universal brain where we can retrieve what we have forgotten and what we still do not know.”

Palm-leaf manuscript, National Library of Sri Lanka

Just as our individual organic memories and lives are subject to decay and loss, so too our cultural and collective memories, recorded in libraries and archives around the world, must be cared for with vigilance if they are to be retrieved now and in the future.

For printed books, newspapers, photographs, palm-leaf manuscripts, and paper parchments to be preserved, in the diverse locales of the Asia-Oceania region, the challenges and risks posed by heat, humidity, precipitation, pests and natural disasters must be mitigated day to day.
Our distinguished panel of speakers will each outline conservation, preservation and digitisation techniques and projects underway in their respective institutions:

  • Daw Pyone Pyone Aye, National Library of Myanmar
  • Udaya Cabral, National Library of Sri Lanka
  • Tian ZhouLing, National Library of China

This session will be chaired by Maggie Patton, Head of Collection Acquisition & Curation at The State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Future Memory is a partnership between IFLA Regional Division Asia Oceania, IFLA Rare Books and Special Collections, IFLA Preservation and Conservation Section, ALIA Rare Books and Special Collections, and The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc.