News

For the nineteenth time since 1976 a group of mid-career professionals from 20 different countries are gathering for the International Course on Stone Conservation co-organized by ICCROM in partnership with the Getty Conservation Institute. The Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome will be hosting the field activities throughout the course and YoCoCu will provide assistance during lab exercises.

From 24 to 27 March, 12 participants from six museums across the province of Ontario joined forces with the staff of the Brant Museum and Archives to re-organize an archival storage area comprising 30,000 items. This was accomplished in just under 3 days. On the 4th day, a sold-out conference organized at one of the museum’s offsite locations brought together 80 delegates, who gathered to hear...

The Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (EPA), jointly established by ICCROM and the University of Abomey-Calavi in Porto Novo, has enjoyed a positive start to 2015. On 19 January it welcomed its newest Director, Mr Samuel Kidiba, and on 31 January, it received recognition as a Pan African school during the 24th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa. This continental recognition...

ICCROM shares and supports the strong statement of UNESCO’s Director-General, Dr Irina Bokova, condemning the destruction of archaeological heritage as videotaped at the Mosul Museum and at the site of the Nergal Gate by ISIL militants.

The CollAsia international course on Handling, Packing and Moving Collections came to a close in Kuching, Malaysia. Organized by ICCROM and the Sarawak Museum Department, with the support of the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA), the CollAsia activity aimed to improve scientific literacy and critical thinking skills among the diverse professionals caring for Southeast Asian heritage...

A two-week specialist workshop on “Building National Capacities for Managing Risks to Cultural Heritage in Case of Emergency” concluded in Cairo, Egypt, on 29 January 2015. The workshop was co-organized by ICCROM through its recently-established ATHAR Regional Centre in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, the UNESCO Office in Cairo, the Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization...

The ICCROM community is shocked and saddened by news of the weekend blaze that consumed an estimated 1 million historic titles belonging to the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) in Moscow, the principal Russian library for humanities and Slavic languages, founded in 1918.

CollAsia has brought together a diverse set of professionals with a combined work experience that makes for valuable exchanges and discussions. Caring for cultural heritage is at the heart of the work of participants and the course team, but different working roles, resources and cultural contexts give rise to unique challenges and solutions, which everyone can learn from.

In December 2014, Mr Samuel Kidiba was elected Director of the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (EPA – School of African Heritage) by its Board of Directors. He took office on 20 January 2015 for a term of four years. Mr Kidiba is the third Director of EPA since its creation and is the first to come from Central Africa (Republic of the Congo).

Locked in obsolete formats and threatened by degradation and decay, nearly all of sound and image collections held by museums, archives, libraries, universities and other cultural or research repositories face the imminent threat of extinction. As a result, the world stands to lose a wealth of knowledge and information – a wealth that binds communities together and is crucial for conserving our...