Training seminar for staff in charge of the Documentation and Inventory of Cambodian Museums

In cooperation with the UNESCO Office in Cambodia and the National Museum of Cambodia, a training seminar was organized in Phnom Penh from 4 to 9 December 2009.

It was sponsored by UNESCO within the framework of the Programme for preventive conservation of endangered museum collections.

The objective of the seminar was to provide museum staff directly in charge of documentation of the collections with the necessary tools and methods to establish a proper documentation system and to strengthen the existing inventory of the museums’ collections.

29 professionals from 15 Cambodian museums attended a training session on the means to improve their documentation and inventorying techniques.

The importance of this training was to create a national standard of inventory and documentation for Cambodian museums, in an attempt to help in the fight against illicit traffic of cultural property. Moreover, this training was included in UNESCO’s activity for the training of museum staff with the use of the “Cultural Heritage Protection Handbooks” volumes 1 to 4, which have just been translated in Khmer.

The training was conducted in the form of classroom teaching and presentations on the status of each museum, and was held in the premises of the National Museum of Cambodia. This allowed participants to work directly with collections belonging to the National Museum. The didactic tools and the methods used during this session were developed in the framework of the UNESCO-ICCROM partnership for preventive conservation.

The evaluation of the seminar showed that the understanding on the methods for documentation and inventory was improved, and an optimistic outlook on the protection of the Cambodian museum collections was created.

Start Date: 01-01-2007   End Date: 30-12-2011

Contact: Ms. Nao Hayashi