Why is ALA involved in developing a traditional cultural expression statement?
There have been many discussions and declarations issued by international organizations concerning the nature, protection and management of TCEs. Until now, libraries—institutions that have a primary role to preserve and provide access to the world’s cultural heritage—have not been involved in these discussions unlike archivists and museum professionals. For example, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has initiated a process to study whether an international law like a copyright treaty is necessary to protect and capitalize on the creativity of indigenous people. If such a treaty passed, it could affect United States copyright law to detriment of libraries who collect traditional cultural expressions. ALA, with its non-governmental organization status at WIPO, has an opportunity to contribute the policy position of US libraries to WIPO. However, because we have not had any substantive discussion within ALA on this topic, we do not know where we stand on the issue as a
