The International Program and Its Global Mission. Introduction to Report Series

The mission of the international program is to enable the preservation of materials in the spirit of worldwide cooperation, and to ensure enduring access among countries and throughout time. The commission's international program involves collaboration among scholars worldwide through the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA), raising awareness and assistance for the preservation problem. The commission's work includes: enriching American and international scholarship; encouraging and coordinating international cooperation in eliminating redundancy and wisely using financial resources; stimulating preservation activities in developed countries; and bringing preservation information to less developed countries. The first step of the program was to identify needs regarding preservation of and access to the world's written knowledge and how to meet these needs. Hundreds of institutions from dozens of countries have contacted the commission for information and guidance. The forthcoming series of program reports, which illustrate the breadth and variety of ECPA's cooperative preservation initiatives, is discussed.