Donald Tsang, finance secretary, visits the resource center accompanied by the staff of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department on opening day.
 

THE HONG KONG... from p. 2

aside from the holding of regular retrospectives, exhibitions, seminars, and tours.
      Foremost of the HKFA’s mission is to promote Hong Kong’s cinematic heritage as well as to showcase their efforts to preserve their film collection which has been boosted through their acquisition and conservation efforts. Their 3,800 film collection boasts of an 1898 Edison travelogue in Hong Kong, the latest 1990s box-office hits, and cultural artifacts depicting the country’s cinematic history, the industry, and the society at large. Archival and restoration works for damaged films are carried out at the conservation section where their collection is kept and maintained at favorable conditions.
      HORIZON, a multi-media and multi-lingual cataloguing system has been adapted by HKFA in indexing their unique collection. After the inauguration of the Archives, their database will be accessed through the internet.

Taken in front of the Archive building (from left to right) Okajima Hisashi, Sam Ho, Ray Edmondson, Belina Capul, Cynthia Liu, Lalit Kumar Upadhyaya, Vinasandhi, Winston Lee, and Park Jin-seok.

completes the facilities.
      Visitors will be struck by the absence of artificial airconditioning equipment in the storage vaults of Spain. This is true for both film and paper materials. The country’s cool and dry climate complemented by the thick walls of the archives repel the heat of the summer months and prove most favorable to long-term preservation through time.
      Among Filmoteca’s showcases is the Cine Doré, a restored 1923 art nouveau style film theater located in downtown Madrid. The theater houses two screening rooms, a café, and a bookshop. Here, prominent film artists and producers, both national and international, have personally presented their films and interacted with the theater’s growing clientele of cineastes and scholars.
      Inspite of the absence of Filmoteca’s director Sr. Jose Maria Prado who was then out-of-town, Ms. Mendoza was well received by the head of preservation Sr. Fermin Prado Brun and publications staff Sra. Margarita Lobo Gomez. In turn, they were especially appreciative of copies of the SEAPAVAA Newsletter because they have almost no information about cinema and audiovisual archiving in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

maintains a prestigious international register which lists some of the key documents of world history -- and identifies their custodians.
      The general guidelines which underpin the Memory of the World are being revised. SEAPAVAA was appointed by UNESCO to host a special workshop of experts as part of the revision process. The workshop was held in Bangkok from 9 to 19 February 2001, and ran partly in parallel with SEAPAVAA’s executive council meeting. Participants traveled from Norway, Brazil, Australia, and Malaysia, and were joined by senior members of UNESCO’s principal regional office for Asia/Pacific, which is based in Bangkok. The new guidelines, in draft, will be considered by the 14-member Memory of the World Intenational Advisory Committee (IAC) when it meets in Chungju, Korea in June this year.
      Two SEAPAVAA councilors -- Dato’ Habibah Zon and Ray Edmondson -- are also members of the IAC, and Ray has also been tasked with the responsibility of drafting the new text arising from the workshop’s discussions.
      If you want to learn more about Memory of the World, check the website: www.unesco.org/webworld.