Dear Guests,

it was with great pleasure that I learned that the XX CIPA International Symposium will take place in Turin on September 27th > October 1st, 2005 and I am sure that both Turin and the Conference Organizing Committee will welcome all delegates with the typical Italian sense of hospitality that makes every trip to Italy an unforgettable experience.

The Symposium will guarantee an outstanding Scientific Programme as well as a unique Social and Cultural Programme in our country. We are sure that you realize how much a trip to Italy is always a "tour artistique". There are so many artistic treasures and of such quality that to describe Italy as an open-air art gallery in its own right is not an exaggeration.

Italy signed the World Heritage Convention and through the work carried out with great success under the General Directorate for the Preservation of Cultural and Natural Heritage has so far registered 37 locations on the World Heritage List.

It is indeed a most valuable task and endeavour to try to establish a well-functioning coordination for the preservation of the Cultural Heritage among all the nations around the World, as the title of the XX CIPA International Symposium INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO SAVE THE WORLDS CULTURAL HERITAGE clearly states, and I am therefore particularly honoured to invite all nations to participate in the congress sessions and to wish all participants a pleasant and scientifically fruitful stay in Italy, and particularly in Turin.

I hope to great you in Turin in September 2005!

Yours sincerely,

Dear Friends,

I cordially invite you to the XXth CIPA International Symposium to be held in Torino, Italy, on September 27th > October 1st, 2005.

The theme of the Symposium "International Cooperation to save the worlds Cultural Heritage" underlines the need and our common will to safeguard, preserve and promote our common history.

With the opportunity of this occasion, I wish to reconfirm that our mission to "encourage the development of Principles and Practices for the Recording, Documentation and Information Management for all aspects of Cultural Heritage and to support and encourage the development of specialized tools and techniques in support of these activities" is valid and well pursuit.

Our ambition for this Symposium is to bring together two worlds: conservators, architects and art historians, scientists and practitioners will show their needs and problems, will demonstrate good and bad examples, will report on the advances of inventory and monitoring in their countries. On the other hand, technical experts from all around the world will report on up-to-date methodologies, on easy to handle and low cost methods for inventories, surveying and photogrammetry, on new advances in photography, aerial and geophysical prospection, and information technology, for application in the heritage conservation and planning sciences.

This meeting is an opportunity for all of us to learn about the new developments as well as share our experiences with others. I am sure that this Symposium will prove to be very successful and rewarding for all participants.

Let's promote CIPA as the international focal point for Heritage Documentation.

Sincerely Yours,

RECORDIM PLENARY SESSION

As requested by the CIPA Symposium organizers, four (4) RecorDIM Partner Organizations will be invited to participate in the RecorDIM Plenary Session (on Day-2 of the Symposium) to talk about their alliances and cooperation with other partners, and to report on the progress and results of their task group activities. It is felt that by exposing Symposium participants to concrete alliances and results, this Plenary Session will incite other organizations to create new task group proposals.

At the end of this Plenary Session, the RecorDIM Task Group Alliance Hub web page (http://extranet.getty.edu/qci/recordim/hub.html) will be used as a framework:

• to show who is working on what task groups,
• to identify what gaps remain to be bridged, and consequently
• to generate dialogue towards resolving some of the remaining gaps listed in the Roundtable-1 report (see pages 9-12 of the 'Bridging the Gap Between The Information User and Provider' document at:
  http://extranet.getty.edu/qci/recordim/reports.html).

CIPA-RecorDIM Roundtable-5 Meeting
Roundtable-5 will take place immediately after the Symposium (October 1-2, 2005), to follow-up on the symposium RecorDIM Plenary Session discussions. It will then focus on how to improve communication between conservation organizations, and on increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the use of the Alliance Hub.