Memory of the World: Nomination Casebook
The Memory of the World Nomination Casebook brings together the experiences of custodians from around the world (including Aotearoa New Zealand) who have successfully navigated the nomination process.
ICDH publications
The Casebook, published by the International Centre for Documentary Heritage under the auspices of UNESCO (ICDH), follows two volumes of Guidelines for Documentary Heritage at Ris (2022 and 2024) which highlighted the challenges of preserving at-risk records due to natural disasters and material fragility.
The publications focused on the physical preservation of memory—how to protect what might be lost.
This Casebook represents the next step in that mission. It shifts the focus from safeguarding to recognising and sharing memory—by exploring the process through which communities, institutions, and governments nominate their most valued documentary heritage for inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register.
The publication is grounded in a larger goal: to ensure that the memories we preserve are not only kept safe, but are made visible and accessible, so that they may be shared, studied, and understood by people across cultures and generations.
Included amongst the case studies in the publication are insights from UNESCO Memory of the World New Zealand Committee member Seán JD McMahon, in relation to the Katherine Mansfield literary and personal papers and belongings inscription onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2025.
