The conference has been conducted in the framework of the Interreg Greece - Cyprus Cross-border Operational Program, Digital Herodotus ΙΙ.

The aim of the conference, which took place at Filoxenia Conference Centre in Nicosia, was to stress the importance and necessity of the digitisation of archived material, so that this material may be protected against the risk of damage, deterioration or destruction.

In his address at the opening of the conference, Nicos Nouris, minister of interior, Cyprus, mentioned, inter alia, that, “through the digitisation of primary material of unique value, be it audiovisual, print, or musical, the history and culture of our country is outlined, from colonialism to the present day.”

Furthermore, Nouris underlined the fact that the cooperation between the two leading mass media organisations in our country, the CyBC and the PIO, does not stop here, but rather it extends to other co-funded projects, congratulating the leadership of the two organizations for these initiatives, which, he mentioned, utilise European funds and programs for the national good.

Sophie Michaelides, director, PIO, in her own address mentioned that the Press and Information Office constitutes the organisation that has been gathering press archives since its establishment. Moreover, she stressed that, “the PIO’s Newspaper Archive has the most comprehensive collection of newspapers published in Cyprus”.

Stressing the importance of the collection, she added, “In numbers, this means many millions of pages of newspapers, some of them dating back to 1878. 142 years of history are kept in a specially designed area, providing a valuable source and testimony of the history, politics and social and economic life of the country”.