The National Library of Luxembourg (BNL) has joined 25 other of the largest record-keeping institutions in the Francophone world in making a public declaration on the threat posed to cultural heritage by radical extremism.
The signatories took this initiative following attacks on cultural institutions and their public in countries such as Belgium, the Ivory Coast, France, Morocco, Mali and Tunisia, which the statement described as "acts of intentional destruction of tangible and intangible cultural heritage".
The declaration reaffirmed the need to preserve, enhance and disseminate all forms of cultural heritage, highlighting th universal dimension of this heritage. The statement confirmed the determination of members of the Francophone Digital Network (RFN) to collaborate to strengthen the storage, reporting, dissemination and promotion conditions of heritage to which they have a collective responsibility for the benefit of present and future generations.
The statement signatories include libraries and archives who met on 27 April 2016 in Paris at the headquarters of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, where they held the tenth general assembly of RFN.
The RFN is a consortium of the 25 largest documentary institutions in the Francophone world, which is committed to heritage digitisation programmes as a means of building and developing a Francophone digital library portal serving the visibility of Francophone culture and the French language. The BNL was among the six national libraries which took the initiative to create the Francophone Digital Network in 2006.
