The Memory of the World program is a promotional campaign to bring the value and significance of documentary heritage to wider notice. It constitutes a kind of 'honour board' of specially important documents which can demonstrate the virtues and benefits of libraries, archives and museums in preserving a society's documentary heritage. Listing on its Registers adds weight to owners' claims about the value of items or collections, which may be useful for funding, sponsorship, or other marketing purposes. In some circumstances, listing may be a powerful moral protection against threats to the survival of certain documents.

Presented by Roslyn Russell of Roslyn Russell Museum Services, this workshop aims to raise awareness of the assessment process that results in the inscription of significant documentary heritage on the Australian Memory of the World Register. Assessing the significance of a document or collection means convincingly (but briefly) articulating its meaning for past and/or contemporary society. It is more explicit and detailed than a sheer assertion that an item or collection simply is significant. It cannot be merely a description of the documentary heritage, but must analyse and justify the significance that has been identified. It must be written in accessible, not specialist, language, so as to be understood by the general public.

The workshops aim to explain what the assessors expect from applicants' descriptions of the significance of their documentary heritage item or collection. Interactive case studies will examine specific collections of documentary heritage and work through the process of assessing their significance and framing nominations. We hope that this process will assist future applicants in their nominations of significant documentary heritage to the Australian Memory of the World Register, and to the regional and international Registers, where applicable.

If you are thinking about nominating documentary heritage for the next round of Memory of the World listing in 2008, please attend one of the workshops and be part of the process.

Roslyn Russell chairs the Assessment Sub-Committees of both the International and Australian Memory of the World Registers, and is Rapporteur of the Bureau of the International Advisory Committee of the Memory of the World Programme. She has helped to develop tools for assessing the significance of movable and documentary heritage, including the first Memory of the World program guidelines (1996) and Significance (Heritage Collections Council, 2001), and has been involved for some years in the historical significance assessment process for the National Library/National Archives Community Heritage Grants program. Roslyn is the author and co-author of a number of books and other publications on Australia's history and heritage. She also edits two magazines for the museum sector, Museums Australia Magazine and Friends of the National Museum of Australia magazine.

'The Deed of Settlement of the South Australian Company, 1836', in the care of the State Library of South Australia, is item 011/2004 on the Australian Memory of the World Register.

This event is free due to financial assistance from the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, and support from the The State Library of South Australia, and The State Library of Western Australia.

Booking is essential.

The provisional Program is available in Microsoft^® Word (86kB) and Adobe^® Acrobat^® (115kB) formats.

If you require it, the Adobe^® Acrobat^® reader can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html.

The online Manual developed for nominating items to the Australian Memory of the World is available by clicking here.

Comments, ideas and suggestions are also welcome by email to roslyn@rrms.com.au

If you require it, the Adobe^® Acrobat^® reader can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html.

The Booking form is available from this link. Booking Form.

The following resources are recommended to workshop participants and other interested readers.

Australian Heritage Commission. Australian Historic Themes: A framework for use in heritage assessment and management. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission, 2001. Available from http://www.ahc.gov.au/publications/generalpubs/framework/index.html.

Russell, Roslyn, and Kylie Winkworth. Significance: a guide to assessing the significance of cultural heritage objects and collections. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia on behalf of the Heritage Collections Council, 2001. Available from http://www.amol.org.au/craft/publications/hcc/significance/significance.asp.

Final report on the workshops by Ros Russell held in Adelaide and Perth in April and May 2006.