Pham Sanh Chau, general secretary of the Vietnam National UNESCO Committee, discusses Vietnam’s ideas for documentary heritage for possible inclusion in a Memory of the World programme.

Could you briefly outline what Memory of the World is and Vietnam’s interest in the programme?

UNESCO’s Memory of the World was launched in 1994. It aims to push the preservation of valuable archive holdings and library collections throughout the world to ensure their wide dissemination. The heritage may include books, films, pictures, recorded voice and hand-written scripts.

Vietnam started to give the programme attention at UNESCO’s meeting in Manila in 2005.

UNESCO runs activities in the fields of culture, education, social science and information. The programme falls within information. In Vietnam, the State Archive Department keeps this information, which is why many working in education and culture were unaware of the programme.

Memory of the World is yet to receive the same recognition as the international convention in 1972 on tangible heritage and a similar convention in 2003 on intangible heritage.

Which documentary heritage has Vietnam nominated for the Memory of the World programme?

Since 2005, the committee has promoted the programme. In 2007, we got sponsorship to start a training class on preparing heritage files for submission to the programme.

The first submission was the Nguyen dynasty’s wooden printing moulds (the moulds from which books were printed between 1697 and 1945). The work was completed by the department.

The other was a file on a photo collection of Indochina before 1954 by the Social Science Information Institute. The files were sent during the last two years. UNESCO will announce the results later this year.

What do you think of the files? Is there any possibility they will get recognition?

I led the Vietnamese delegation to a recent conference organised by UNESCO in South Korea for countries in the programme on how to revise their files.

Before the conference, UNESCO’s experts suggested Vietnam reconsider the collection of photos. After rereading the file, I realised it was not persuasive enough as the programme’s principles state the documentary heritage should be original, intact and unique.

The collection is no longer intact with many photos stored in France.

We decided not to present the collection and instead introduced a file on the 82 doctor laureate steles at Ha Noi’s Temple of Literature.

There are steles in areas throughout Vietnam and other Asian countries. Are you sure Ha Noi’s are unique?

Before introducing the file, we carefully read approved files from other countries, including China’s Golden Lists of the Qing Dynasty Imperial Examination.

In comparison to the lists, the stone steles in Ha Noi name the 2,313 doctors who passed the court examinations between 1442 and 1779 (some material recorded the period between 1484 and 1514) under the Early-Le, Mac and Late-Le dynasties.

The steles also outline how the examinations were held, historical data about the examinations and the names of the stone carvers, who made them.

Obviously the steles in Ha Noi’s Temple of Literature provide sufficient and concrete information on history and culture.

At the same meeting in South Korea, after introducing the file on 82 steles in the Temple of Literature, we presented it to most of UNESCO’s judging board members as a trial.

What was the result of the trial?

It showed the steles could be recognised as documentary heritage within the programme. We have worked on the file to submit to UNESCO by September. We know if we are successful in March.

VietNamNet/VNS