The documents that the Canberra meeting at the National Library of Australia will discuss are.

a preliminary draft Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage being prepared by UNESCO,

draft technical guidelines on the preservation of digital heritage being prepared for UNESCO by the National Library of Australia.

Participants at the meeting include representatives of a range of producers, preservers and users of digital heritage materials, and other stakeholders.

Similar consultation meetings will be held in Managua, from 18-20 November, Addis Ababa, from 9-11 December and Riga, from 18-20 December 2002.

An increasingly large share of the information produced today in practically all areas of human activity is compiled digitally and is designed to be accessed on computers. But this enormous trove of digital information may well be lost unless specific techniques and policies are developed to conserve it. UNESCO is presently examining these issues with a view to defining a standard to guide governments’ preservation endeavours in the digital age.