Mr. Kikuchi explaining Curacao Consensus in the Annual General Meeting

Group discussion at round tables

• - The 39th International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (CITRA) was held at Curacao, Netherlands Antilles from the 20th to 24th November, where more than 200 participants from 77 countries/areas came together. Mr. Kikuchi Mitsuoki, the President of the National Archives of Japan and the Vice President of the International Council on Archives (ICA), served as the chairman of this conference.
  
  
• - The theme of this year's CITRA was Sharing Memory through Globalization, for which the participants discussed the important role of the archival organizations in global age in preserving records of the historical facts, such as slavery, colonization/decolonization and migration, to be shared beyond the national boundaries.
  
  
• - The conference applied a new format this year. After the plenary sessions, participants freely formed groups and discussed the subjects that they identified important. These discussions alternated with plenary sessions where each group provided a report of the session. The groups respectively proposed draft resolutions to the final plenary session, which were reflected in the resolution adopted at the Annual General Meeting.
  
  
• - CITRA was followed by the Annual General Meeting that discussed the need of drastic revision of management policy of the future ICA in view of the severe fiscal situation and other challenges toward archival organizations. The members adopted the Curacao Consensus 2006 that outlines the urgent issues to deal with and action plans for the innovation. For more information on CITRA and the Annual General Meeting, please see Archives no.26 (to be published in January, 2007)
  
  

ICA was founded in 1948 with assistance extended by UNESCO. The National Archives of Japan became a member in a year after the archives' establishment in 1972. ICA currently counts some 1,400 members including national and local archives and related organizations in 190 countries. ICA holds the International Congress in every four years and CITRA in other years. The 2007 CITRA will take place at Quebec City, Canada in November. The next International Congress on Archives will be at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2008. Membership of ICA is open to individual and various types of organizations. To apply for membership of ICA, please contact the National Archives of Japan.