Documents as Unity between Carrier and Content

listing this fifth condition. According to the MoW Companion, “a document is an item that is made up of signs or codes (such as writing) or sounds and/or images (such as a recording, photograph or film), and is (usually) moveable, preservable, and able to be reproduced or copied.”¹⁴⁴ As it can be seen in this definition, the fifth condition of deliberate intention has not been included. However, there is another important difference between the General Guidelines and the MoW Companion that warrants some attention. Whereas the conditions listed in the Guidelines define documentary heritage, those listed in the Companion define a document, as can be seen in the citation above, which shows that the notions of document and documentary heritage are used interchangeably. However, the difference between them is crucial, at least because the documentary heritage in MoW refers to documents that have been raised above their informational function to the level of the heritage of humanity.

Accordingly, documents cannot mean exactly the same as documentary heritage. Therefore, the five conditions presented above should be first and foremost considered conditions for defining documentary heritage rather than documents, because this is also supported by the explanations provided in the General Guidelines, whose purpose seems to not only relate to the definition of documentary heritage but also the contextualization of MoW among other UNESCO initiatives for culture and heritage.

documents into five different groups, largely based on the media on which they are inscribed, in other words storage media: (a) paper and other traditional materials referring to e.g. paper, parchment, leather, palm leaves; (b) photographic materials, which includes black and white/coloured still images on all types of carriers, such as paper, glass, cellulose or something else; (c) mechanical carriers, comprising sound recordings on disks or cylinders;¹⁴⁸ (d) magnetic materials, refer tapes, hard discs and floppy discs; and (e) optical materials, comprising all laser read and written materials such as CD-ROMs, recordable CDs or optical tape.¹⁴⁹ These types of materials are represented on the MoW Registers, which even exceeds this classification as demonstrated by inscribed documentary heritage, for example the Bayeux Tapestry, which is an embroidery, so textile material; or the Inscribed Stone of Terengganu, which as suggested by its name, is a piece of stone. Additionally, the Guide speaks of electronic publications, electronic documents and virtual information, which are placed in line with the five categories described above. As explained in the glossary of terms attached to the Guide, the carrier on which information is stored can be both a physical or virtual medium, such as a “radio carrier signal”, with examples of information also including

“the binary digits forming an E-Mail message.”¹⁵⁰ However, despite the fact that digital documents share the same characteristic with all other documents – they all consist in a carrier and content, regardless how “virtual” or transitory the carrier – in MoW, if one judges based on its key documents, the value of the digital carrier seems to have decreased over time.

Returning to the statements in the Guidelines and MoW Companion, the main difference is that in the MoW Companion the carrier and content is said to only form a unity in the case of traditional documents, yet not in the case of digital and audio-visual documents, because these can only be preserved by transferring the content to newer media.¹⁵¹ This was already noted as something of a contradiction in the Introduction, given that the value of a document is not defined by the possibilities to preserve it. However, this changed statement is also surprising because remarks regarding difficulties in preserving digital documents were already present at the inception of MoW; likewise were statements about the value of the carriers in the case of

148 The cylinder is a format for sound recordings. For an example of this kind of documentary heritage see UNESCO, “The oldest sound documents (Edison-cylinders) of traditional music of the world from 1893 to 1952”: Nomination form submitted by Germany to the International Memory of the World Register,

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/register/ (accessed 29 April 2013).

149 George Boston, Memory of the World Programme - Safeguarding the Documentary Heritage: A Guide to Standards, Recommended Practices and Reference Literature Related to the Preservation of Documents of All Kinds (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), 3.

150 Boston, Memory of the World Programme, 52-53

151 UNESCO, “Memory of the World Register Companion”.

digital or audio-visual documents. The distinction between carrier and content was already present in the first documents related to MoW, and has guided the selection of inscribed documentary heritage. As explained by Arnoult in the first draft Guidelines, it is necessary to differentiate between information and its physical support, both of which may be significant in their specific way. Either the information is significant, for example due to its historical, anthropological or linguistic interest; or its physical support is significant, among others due to its aesthetic values.¹⁵² Consequently, Arnould clarifies that

“…at least two forms of heritage will be distinguished: first, information itself, incorporeal and of intrinsic value; second, the material objects which serve as supports to that information. The concept of heritage is therefore dependent on the approach adopted: either the emphasis is laid on the content […] or the emphasis is laid on the nature of the object (the materials of which it is composed, for instance).”¹⁵³

While this statement indicates that both carrier and content were considered to have value, it is also true that the first draft Guidelines speaks about different types of values for carrier and content.

As noted in the first draft Guidelines, the development of audio-visual media has led to a decrease in the aesthetic value of the carriers, and also a tendency to attach heritage value to information alone: “as technologies evolve, the heritage value of documents is gradually becoming attached to the intrinsic qualities as opposed to aesthetic qualities, the trend being towards a standard or commonplace product.”¹⁵⁴ However, the draft Guidelines additionally remark in the case of computer disks that “the heritage value of these supports resides in their technical features, to be more precise, their capacity for stocking vast quantities of information in a small place.”¹⁵⁵ The statement that the heritage value lies in its storage capacity in the case of digital technology is perhaps something that the text should have further explained, given that it is not self-understood what this means. It conveys the understanding that the greater the storage capacity, the greater the heritage value. We can agree that part of the importance of digital technology possibly lies in its capacity to store vast amounts of information, yet equating this capacity to heritage value is perhaps more difficult to understand and accept. Nevertheless, the purpose of citing this statement here is neither to criticize nor explain it, but rather to prove that at the beginning of MoW at least an attempt existed to also consider the potential heritage value of digital carriers. While it was

152 Arnoult, Memory of the World Programme: Suggested Guidelines.

153 Arnoult, Memory of the World Programme: Suggested Guidelines, 2-3.

154 Arnoult, Memory of the World Programme: Suggested Guidelines, 4.

155 Ibid.

acknowledged that they may have different values, no hierarchy was suggested, and this was to be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, this does not mean that MoW does not presently consider digital documents at all. Of course, it does, and even the MoW Companion does. Yet, it is one thing to acknowledge that digital documents may count just like any other documents, and it is different to state that they count only because of their information.

However, it is important not to convey the wrong message, especially in its key documents that are meant to offer guidance, specifically because MoW intends to increase understanding and create a global vision of documentary heritage. The recognition of the heritage value of documents in digital form is perhaps better reflected in the emergence of a new and related concept of heritage - the digital heritage - and given that the background for the emergence of this new concept was offered by MoW, an introduction to the Programme would be incomplete without also dedicating some space to this concept.