Preserving Intangible Cultural Heritage

The past decade has seen tremendous progress in the field of preservation, particularly with respect to preservation of digital materials. To date, however, there has been only minimal research activity within North America on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage—such as language, cuisine, performing arts, and traditional craftsmanship—and its relationship to the preservation of material expressions of culture. Given the importance of intangible heritage to the cultural and scholarly record, a more significant research program in this area would be of benefit to the scholarly community. In order to launch such a research program, the investigators believe it would be helpful to organize a meeting of individuals and organizations with a strong interest in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage to formulate a research and action agenda in this area with a North American focus.

To this end, the investigators were awarded $25,500 to host a meeting in January 2016 in order to identify key research that needs to be undertaken in the field of preserving intangible cultural heritage. The meeting will result in a white paper outlining these issues.