Electronic documents are part of the digital heritage of modern society

The purpose of the article is to provide a theoretical description of the main aspects of functioning of electronic documents as part of the digital heritage of modern Ukrainian society; to outline its place in the preservation of digital cultural heritage; to focus attention on the contribution of Ukrainika as a valuable resource of digital heritage. Moreover, the aim of the paper is to reveal the essence of the concept of "digital heritage" in the UNESCO "Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage", the Vancouver Declaration "Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation", "Recommendations on Ensuring Preservation and Access to Documentary Heritage", as well as to analyse the trends in the activities of the European Digital Library. The research methodology is based on the retrospective analysis that has been used to determine the goals, tasks of the design of the expected findings in the process of collecting and processing facts. The features of "digital heritage", "cultural heritage" concepts, description of the problem of documentary heritage preservation have been analysed. The textological method has been used to form the idea about the system of preserving the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people; the generalisation method enabled revealing the general picture of the place of electronic documents as part of the digital heritage of the information sphere of society's life. The scientific novelty of the work consists in substantiating the inclusion of electronic documents in the information space with the help of modern technologies, which contributes to the digitalisation of cultural heritage, education and science of Ukraine. Conclusions. Electronic documents occupy an important place in the composition of digital and documentary heritage. The world community has a developed legal framework and experience in preserving digital documentary heritage. As a European state, Ukraine regularly participates in replenishing the world's digital documentary heritage by providing free access to it for users. Keywords: digital heritage, documentary heritage, cultural heritage, electronic document, digital resource, information space, library fund.