The National Library of Jamaica has undertaken to compile a register of the little known but significant heritage documents of the Caribbean. The Caribbean is hereby defined as those Member and Associate Member countries of CARICOM. The National Library of Jamaica, formerly the West India Reference Library is well resourced to begin the compilation of this register as in its collections are documents for many Caribbean countries which date back to the 18th century.

The objectives of this project are;

1. To unearth and promote awareness of the Caribbean’s documentary heritage, both print and audiovisual.
   Create pointers to these documents.
2. Increase stakeholders awareness of the conservation needs and practices for documentary heritage.
3. Advance long standing attempts to develop such a register.
4. To complement UNESCOs Memory of the World Initiatives.
   To create a source of potential nominations to the UNESCO MOW Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean. http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=1538&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

How the register is compiled

This register, Caribbean Memory Register, is modeled on the UNESCO Memory of the World registers and included in this register are resources already on UNESCOs Memory of the World Regional and International Registers. It is hoped that this initiative will prompt National Libraries, History Societies, the National Memory of the World Committees, and other relevant stakeholders in the CARICOM member and associate member countries to identify, select and submit documents for inclusion in this register which will be maintained online by the National Library of Jamaica. Submissions for inclusion in the register are by way of a completed template sent to nljins@cwjamaica.com.

The submission template is modeled on the template used by UNESCO for nominations to its registers.