Servei de Gestió Documental, Arxius i Publicacions
Servei de Gestió Documental, Arxius i Publicacions
Image and Research Conference
The objective over the past 40 years has been to advance the standardization of photographic heritage management: preservation, methods of acquisition and rights management, documentary processing, and dissemination. The methodologies and practices developed have constantly adapted to social, technological, and professional evolution. Consequently, in the year 2026, we continue to speak about photographic heritage, albeit with nuances. In fact, over the last two decades, this concept has been integrated as a specific subfield within a broader framework: image heritage management. Today, even the term "image collection management" is used, as the new reality and contemporary use of photography have blurred the traditional concept of heritage.
It is estimated that there are more than 16 billion mobile phones in the world—exceeding the global population—with many of them already inactive. Furthermore, each person with a mobile phone takes an average of twelve photos per day, and young people between the ages of 18 and 25 average more than two videos a day. With 2.1 trillion photos produced in 2025, it is unavoidable to question what role archives will play, not in the future, but in relation to the production of the past 50 years. The sheer volumes, the trivialization of content, quality, diffuse authorship, the rise of artificial intelligence... Perhaps we must accept that this photoflation breaks with what we have learned so far, and that the challenges of the future are merely the problems of the present that we are currently unable to resolve. The future always arrives too soon.
Head of the Documentary Management, Archives and Publications Service and Director of the Centre for Image Research and Dissemination (CRDI) of Girona City Council.
At the international level, he is currently President of the Section of Local, Municipal and Territorial Archives (ICA-SLMT) of the International Council on Archives (ICA). He is also a contributor to the InterPARES Trust AI project on Artificial Intelligence for Archives and Records, based at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).
Previously, he has collaborated on various national and international projects and committees, including the ICA Expert Group on Records Management – Physical and Digital (ICA-MPDR) and the ICA Expert Group on Appraisal; the Ad Honorem Committee of the Network of Ibero-American Diplomatic Archives (RADI); the National Commission on Access to and Appraisal of Documents of Catalonia; the CTN50/SC1 technical committee of the Spanish Association for Standardization (AENOR); the Ibero-American Forum on Records Appraisal; InterPARES TRUST and InterPARES-3; the review of MoReq2; the Vital Records project (ICA); and the VALORA Community of Practice, among others.
As a lecturer, he has primarily collaborated with the International University of Andalusia, the University of Girona, and the School of Archives and Records Management (ESAGED) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, as well as with other Spanish and international universities, public institutions, and professional associations. He has also been a speaker at conferences on several continents. He is the author or co-author of more than 150 publications.
Ajuntament de Girona • Plaça del Vi, 1 - 17004 GIRONA • sgdap@ajgirona.cat