With an aim to localise information sources into a coherent global resource, the annual conference of the CIDOC also known as International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) began in the city on Monday.
It is for the first time that the conference is being held in the Indian Subcontinent and the topic of the meet is “Documenting Diversity – Collections, Catalogues and Context”.
The conference has attracted 230 Participants from 42 countries across the globe including Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and Asia. The conference was inaugurated by N.K. Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India who said that India with its multitude of languages, ethnic groups, traditions, long history, varied geography and ecosystems, is undoubtedly one of the most richly diverse countries in the world.
He stressed on the need for documentation as the main tool through which the cultural heritage can be preserved and accessed by public. The CIDOC conference will focus on the problems that India’s Museums and cultural heritage institutions face with documenting this diversity: the collecting practices, cataloguing methods, and contextual information that are required to deal with such varied collections, and the growing need for museums to work closely with archives, libraries and other cultural heritage institutions to achieve common goals.
The conference, being hosted by the National Museum Institute, hopes to enable and encourage dialogue about information management between professionals working in different roles in museums and act as a forum where participants can exchange practical experiences, share problems, search for solutions and find new inspiration.
Nicholas Crofts, Chairman, CIDOC, said he hoped the conference would foster a real sense of international community, bringing documentation professionals together from across the world so that everybody could benefit from sharing.
Sanjiv Mittal, vice-chancellor, National Museum Institute, said that at a time when technology is constantly pushing boundaries in the field of archives, he was sure that the conference would be a landmark in setting India’s role in archiving and stocktaking.
Over the next five days, there will be multiple discussion sessions, panels and workshop at the National Museum Institute.
A conference focuses on the problems that India’s museums and cultural heritage institutions face in terms of documenting diversity
