More and more of the world's cultural and educational resources are being produced, distributed and accessed in digital form rather than on paper. Born-digital heritage available on-line, including electronic journals, World Wide Web pages or on-line databases, is now part of the world’s cultural heritage. However, digital information is subject to technical obsolescence and physical decay.

The UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage addresses these issues.

The instability of the Internet is an additional risk for knowledge accumulated in html format. The need to safeguard this relatively new form of documentary heritage calls for international consensus on its collection, preservation and dissemination which resulted in the adoption of "UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage" Guidelines accompanying the Charter adapt and extend present policies, legal frameworks and archival procedures so that this new form of heritage will not sink into silence.

30-05-2011 (Paris) 

National Archives of Australia to receive UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize