This guide contains a description of resources and search strategies for researching the publications and activities of the United Nations. Most items are held in the Government Reference Collection (SC-GOV-REF), in Scott Microtext (SC-MICR), on the third floor of Scott Library (SCOTT-GOV), or in storage. Though this guide will cover virtually all questions likely to arise, advanced researchers may wish to make note of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library’s United Nations Documentation: Research Guide, the Scott Reference Guide to UN Indexes and the Guide to the UN Index to Proceedings. All the sources listed in this guide are available at York University or elsewhere in Toronto. Off campus researchers may wish to consult the list of United Nations depository libraries to locate the UN collection nearest them.

For assistance, please contact the Scott Research Desk.

Contents

1. What is the United Nations?
2. Guide to United Nations web sites.
3. United Nations material at York.
4. Indexes to United Nations documents.
5. Research strategies

What is the UN?

The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization (IGO), membership of which is open to all sovereign states upon recommendation by the Security Council and approval by the General Assembly. The purposes of the UN, as set forth in the Charter, are to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these ends. The UN is thus what is termed a universal membership, universal purpose organization. Information generated by the UN is valuable for a variety of reasons:

1. As a universal purpose organization, the UN tackles a wide variety of problems, usually generating information in the process.
2. As a universal membership organization, a variety of voices are heard which would otherwise escape the attention of the mainstream media. UN documentation is thus a valuable source of information on foreign policy, especially that of developing nations.

The six principal organs of the United Nations are the: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice and Secretariat. The United Nations family, however, is much larger, encompassing 15 agencies, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Health Organization (WHO) and several programmes and bodies, such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) .

Guide to key United Nations web sites

These resources are free and available to all who have access to the World Wide Web. Most of the information on UN web sites is of current interest current only. The Unied Nations has, however, added certain classes of retrospective material its web sites. Most notable are the collections of resolutions and proceedings of the General Assembly and Security Council along with some basic texts emanating from the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). For the most part one must continue to use print sources and to find information that pre-dates the web, the research strategies section of this guide will provide many useful tips and techniques.

These sites, however, are important gateways to the more popular sources of UN information:

• http://www.un.org/This is the main website for the United Nations. It is though, properly speaking, the website for the New York Offices of the UN.
• http://www.unsystem.org/This site is an attempt by the UN to keep track of all of the major websites maintained by organizations within the UN system or family. It is not exhaustive nor is it always correct and up to date but it is the first place to which to turn for the location of UN programme and agency websites.
• http://www.un.int/missions/webs.htmlThis leads to links for the Permanent Missions of the member states of the United Nations. This does not lead to UN material but, rather, foreign government material issued by delegations to the United Nations. Should there be a delay by the United Nations in releasing meeting records or if a better picture of a country’s foreign policy is sought, speeches and policy documents may be found here on the Permanent Mission websites.
• Official Document System (ODS) : Provides full-text access to United Nations official documents back to 1993 and resolutions back to 1946. Detailed information is available via Queen’s University Library.
• http://www.un.org/documents/The United Nations Documentation Centre website provides access to a subset of the Official Document System database. Only a selection of key material is made freely available. Though resolutions andf recent speeches receive good coverage.
• http://unbisnet.un.orgUNBISNET is a bibliographical database maintained by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York. In addition to document references, it contains refernces to speeches and voting records for resolutions.

United Nations Material at York

1. Print, microfiche and microprint
2. Electronic resources
3. Other UN Collections in Toronto.

It is important to note the difference between documents and publications. Whether an item is one or the other will determine where it is and how you locate it.

• Publications are usually destined to inform the general public about an organization or its activities. They are generally substantial in size. York University purchases a significant number of United Nation publications and they may be found using Yorkline.
• Documents are, generally, records of meetings and other materials issued by IGOs as a result of their work. They may be one page or several hundred pages in length. All documents are assigned a special United Nations Document number consisting of letters and numbers separated by a solidus (” /“). York acquires UN documents in microfiche and has a collection of older material in microprint but does not catalogue them. They are found using Document Indexes and other tools.

Print, microfiche and microprint

Virtually all UN material in the York collection is held at the Scott library. The chart below is a summary of York’s holdings and the ways in which to locate material.

Some things to note:

1. The pre-1982 microprint documents can be viewed and scanned for printing in the Microtext Department on the entry level of the Scott Library.
2. Speeches are not really documents but are, rather, the contents of documents and should be found using a different set of tools.
3. York collects all the UN documents and many, but not all, of the publications.

Electronic resources

The United Nations Documentation Centre maintains a clearing house for a select set of documents at: http://www.un.org/documents/. This collection is a subset of the now freely available Official Documents System of the United Nations (ODS) collection at http://documents.un.org/. The ODS provides full-text access to official documents back to 1993 and resolutions back to 1946. The Queen’s University Library has produced a more detailed description of the ODS, available at http://library.queensu.ca/webdoc/guides/un_ods.htm.

Other Collections in Toronto

The University of Toronto Library has been a United Nations Depository since 1947. They have, in addition, a collection of UN documents in microfiche.

Indexes to United Nations Documents

1. Electronic indexes
2. Print indexes
3. Resources from the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library

Electronic Indexes

Access UN (1945-) Indexes United Nations documents including Official Records, masthead documents, draft resolutions, meeting records, UN Sales Publications, and the UN Treaty Series citations. Also included is the full-text of several thousand UN documents. If the reference includes a Readex Year, then it has been filmed and will be found in the Microfiche collection at the Scott Library.

UNBISNET (1979-) Catalogue of UN publications and documentation indexed by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. Coverage is primarily from 1979 forward, however, indexing for resolutions of the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Security Council and Trusteeship Council are included back to 1946. UNBISNET also includes an index to speeches (from the mid 1980s on) and voting information (from the beginning for the Security Council and from the mid 1980s for the General Assembly, ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council) .

Print Indexes

For earlier material, print indexes must be used to get the UN document number. The following indexes cover UN material from 1950 to the present. Each index is differently organized. More information may be found in the Scott Reference Dept. Guide to UN Indexes.

Resources from the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library

In addition to the United Nations Documentation: Research Guide, the Hammarskjöld Library maintains the following useful resources:

• UNBISNET (1979-) Catalogue of UN publications and documentation indexed by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. In addition to the bibliographical records of UN documents described above, UNBINET also contains the catalogue of the UN libraries in New York and Geneva. It is thus a good source for secondary literature about the UN. UNBISNET also contains voting records and indexes to speeches for the General Assembly, Security Council and ECOSOC.
• UN-I-QUE (UN Info Quest), a ready-reference file created by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library to respond to frequently asked questions, is designed to provide quick access to document symbols/sales numbers for UN materials (1946 onwards).

Research Strategies

1. Basic Techniques
2. UN Documents
3. Statements and Speeches
4. Resolutions, Decisions and Voting Records
5. Substantive Reports and Items in the News

Basic Techniques

Time and provenance are important matters to determine in order to conduct effective research using UN material. Many documents are issued with similar, frequently vague, titles and a simple search by title may lead to thousands of references, all but a handful of which are irrelevant. Determining the year(s) during which a topic was discussed and the forum ( General Assembly, Security Council and so on) in which the discussion took place can save the researcher countless hours of wasted effort. The following basic tools will help in this regard:

The 8th-10th editions of Everyone’s United Nations (UN1 OF6.7 EV47 SC-GOV-REF) concisely summarize major UN events occuring between 1945-1985. The researcher is given the forum and the years in which a matter was discussed along with some background information. The Yearbook of the United Nations: Special Edition, UN Fiftieth Anniversary 1945-1995 (UN1 OF6.4 Y42 1945/95 SC-GOV-REF) gives a brief description of the actitivies of the United Nations during the first fifty years of its life.

Once the time frame has been determined, the Yearbook of the United Nations (UN1 OF6.4 Y42 SC-GOV-REF) should be consulted to get a more detailed picture and to acquire references to the key documents and proceedings. For some, this may be all that is required. Others, however, may wish to consult more material, either in the form of UN documents or parliamentary proceedings, including speeches, resolutions and decisions. The Yearbook of the United Nations is generally a couple of years behind and is updated by the UN Chronicle (UN1 OF6.4 CH66 SCOTT, also available online at: http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/).

UN Documents

UN documents are, for the most part, uncatalogued and must be found using Indexes which will supply the UN document number under which they are filed. Which index to use is almost always determined by the time frame and the section above, entitled Indexes to United Nations documents, will describe each index in brief. The separate guide on UN Indexes covers the issues of numbering schemes and the forms and conventions used in the indexes in some detail.

Exactly where and in what form the documents may be found also varies with the time frame. The section on United Nations material at York covers this though, in the case of documents on microprint, the Scott Library Reference Staff should be consulted in case the material exists in an alternative, more accessible, form.

Statements and Speeches

It is important to remember that, while records of the proceedings of the parliamentary bodies are issued as UN documents, the speeches are in fact treated as the contents of those documents and references to them will not be found in the standard indexes. Fortunately, each of the parliamentary bodies (General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council) issued their own set of Official Records along with specialized indexes to their contents.

General Assembly

The General Assembly is the main deliberative body at the United Nations. Each of the Member States has one vote. The Assembly meets every year in regular session commencing in September. The sessions normally adjourn in late December, reconvene as required the following spring and then meet for one day to conclude the work the day before the next session begins. Special and Emergency Special sessions may also be convened as the need arises.

Speeches made in the General Assembly appear in the verbal records, called PVs, of the meetings. There are also General Assembly Committees, each of which issue records of their meetings, some as verbal records (PVs) and others as Summary Records (SRs). A separate document is issued for each meeting.

To locate speeches by an individual, by representatives of a particular country or on a topic, the user must consult the Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly (UN2 D2.4 IN34 G45 SC-GOV-REF) for earlier material or, from 1983 on, UNBISNET, the UN Bibliographical Database. Note that the earlier indexes do not always include the name of the speaker but will include the nationality.

The indexes will enable the user to retrieve a reference to the document in which the speech is contained. Some browsing may be required as page numbers are not given and some sesions can be quite lengthy. From 2000 on, meeting records of the Assembly itself (but not its committees) are available online at the UN Documentation Centre at: http://www.un.org/documents/.

Security Council

The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It consists of 15 members : five permanent members with veto power ( China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and theUnited States) and ten non-permanent members, five of which are elected each year by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The Security Council does not meet sessionally but stands ready to convene at any time as the need arises.

Speeches may be located using UNBISNET from 1983 on or using the print Index to Proceedings of the Security Council (UN2 D2.4 IN34 SE39 SC-GOV-REF) for earlier material. The fulltext from 1994 on is available at: http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/scact.htm

Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) deals primarily with economic, social, cultural and health matters as well as human rights and freedoms. It consists of 54 members, 18 of which are elected each year by the General Assembly for a three-year term. ECOSOC currently holds an organizational session in the spring and a substantive session in July. The substantive session convenes alternately in New York (even years) and Geneva (odd years). Speeches are recorded in precis form and issued as Summary Records. Until 1978, the ECOSOC meetings were numbered consecutively and their document symbols took the form E/SR.-. Thereafter, the date was introduced into the document symbol and the numbering of meetings began afresh each year with the symbols taking the form E/year/SR.-. Meeting records are not found online except via the ODS ( http://documents.un.org/). References to the speeches, however, may be found via UNBISNET from 1983 on or, for earlier material, using the Index to Proceedings of the Economic and Social Council (UN2 D2.4 IN34 EC65 SC-GOV-REF)

Resolutions, Decisions and Voting Records

United Nations resolutions are formal expressions of the opinion or will of United Nations organs. The term “decision” is used to designate formal actions, other than resolutions, dealing with non-substantive or routine matters such as elections and appointments.

General Assembly

Resolutions of the General Assembly are first published as individual documents with the symbol A/RES/- . Until the 31st session, resolutions were consecutively numbered with a Roman numeral enclosed in parentheses following the number and indicating the session during which the resolution was adopted. The resolution containing the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for instance, bore the symbol A/RES/217A (III) indicating that it was the 217th Resolution adopted by the General Assembly since its inception and that it was passed during its 3rd session. Thereafter, a number denoting the session was introduced and the numbering of the resolutions started afresh each session with the form A/RES/sess/-. The resolution containing the text of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was assigned the number A/RES/44/25, indicating that it was the 25th resolution passed by the General Assembly during its 44th session. Resolutions are normally cited without the Document Symbol Prefix as “General Assembly Resolution <NO.>.” The above two examples would normally be cited as “General Assembly Resolution 217A (III)” and “General Assembly Resolution 44/25″ respectively.

Decisions of the General Assembly are not issued as individual documents and have no document series symbol assigned to them. Prior to the 31st session, decisions were unnumbered. Since that time, a numbering system similar to that established for resolutions has been used used to designate the session at which a particular decision was adopted (e.g., decision 50/411 or decision ES-7/11). Two numercial sequences are reserved for decisions to distinguish them from resolutions; the first series (normally 401-499) is reserved for decisions relating to elections and appointments; the second (normally 501-) is reserved for decisions relating to routine matters not covered by the first series.

Resolutions and Decisions of the General Assembly are gathered together and published in a final, official form as a supplement to the General Assembly Official Records (GAOR). The volume containing the Resolutions and Decisions is always the last supplement to the GAOR. Since the 42nd session (1987/88), it has been issued as Supplement 49, regardless of the number of supplements to be released. On the infrequent occasions when more than 49 are issued, it will still be the last numbered supplement. Since the introduction of a sessional designation in the document numbering system in the 31st session, the volume has received the number A/sess./- with the final number correpsonding to the Supplement Number. The Resolutions and Decisions adopted by the General Assembly during its 50th session is thus labelled both as Supplement no. 49 and as document A/50/49. Prior to that, the volume received a document number entirely separate from its Supplement number. The volume containing the resolutions and decisions passed by the General assembly during its 9th session, for instance, was issued as Supplement no. 21 and as document number A/2890.

Security Council

Resolutions of the Security Council are published as individual documents, always identified by the prefix S/RES/- and are consecutively numbered. Four digits representing the year of adoption are enclosed in parentheses immediately following the sequential number. Security Council resolutions can only be identified, apart from the document symbols assigned to them, by the subjects to which they relate since they do not carry individual titles. Decisions of the Security Council are unnumbered and, as they are not issued as individual documents, have no document series symbol assigned to them.They are published in the following order:

1. The text appears first in a Press Release summarizing the proceedings of a particular session. These receive the symbol SC/-. Note: The text is included regardless of whether or not the resolution passed and this is is the only easily accessible source for text of defeated resolutions.
2. Individual documents for each resolution are issued, always identified by the prefix S/RES/- where the final document number corresponds to the number of the resolution
3. As t Special Supplement to the Security Council Official Records having the number S/INF/- with one issue per calendar year. The UN has made these available online in PDF format at: http://www.un.org/documents/scres.htm

Economic and Social Council

Resolutions of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) are no longer published as individual documents. Until 1977, resolutions adopted by the ECOSOC were consecutively numbered. A Roman numeral enclosed in parentheses follows the sequential number and indicates the regular (e.g., LIV) or special (e.g., S-III) session at which the resolution was adopted. In 1975, the resolution adopted during the organizational session was identified by the designation (ORG-75). From 1978 onwards, the system changed: a new numbering sequence is established at the beginning of each year with Arabic numerals following the year of adoption.

ECOSOC issues a preliminary unofficial collection of resolutions passed at the end of each session under the symbols E/year/INF/-. The final version of the resolutions appear in a supplement to the Economic and Social Council Official Records. In current practice, Supplement No. 1 each year contains the Resolutions and Decisions of ECOSOC. From 1982 on, Resolutions and Decisions are available online at: http://www.un.org/esa/documents/ecosocmainres.htm

Trusteeship Council

Trusteeship Council resolutions were first issued as individual documents with the symbol T/RES/sess./-. They were later issued in final, official form, in a collection which appeared as a supplement to the Trusteeship Council Official Records (TCOR). Generally, the collection formed the first supplement to the TCOR.

Substantive Reports and Items in the News

Substantive Reports and Frequently Asked Questions

At the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, certain landmark reports are consulted on many occasions, long after they are issued. Other, seemingly simple, questions are asked repeatedly and it is considered an inefficient use of staff time to answer them by starting from scratch each time. The Library has thus developed the United Nations Info Quest (UN-I-QUE), a ready-reference file. It is available to the public at: http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf Major reports are entered into the database together with enough information to assist in their location. Other valuable entries include UN Document number references for all Resolution and Statement volumes issued by the deliberative bodies, dates of General Debate addresses (Opening Speeches) given by the Heads of State or Foreign Ministers of the member nations, reports of conferences and so on. It is not designed to replace any of the existing guides or bibliographic databases but, rather, exists as a shortcut in answering popular questions.

Items in the News

The United Nations considers that it cannot reach its purposes if the peoples of the world are not fully informed of its aims and activities. In the 1946 the General Assembly passed Resolution 13(I) establishing the Department of Public Information and requesting it to open branch offices to ensure that people in all parts of the world receive the most complete information possible. There are a number of such offices operating around the world today called Uniteds Nations Information Centres. An overview of their operations and contact information may be found at: http://www.un.org/aroundworld/unics/english/about.htm The New York News Centre, whose website is found at: http://www.un.org/News/, is probably the most important such office in the system. It serves as a centralized portal for news releases of the major organs of the UN and of many but not all of the programmes and bodies working directly under UN auspices either in New York or Geneva. As all of the deliberative bodies are based in New York, it is certainly the first place to which one should turn when looking for items making the news.

While there are many UNICs in operation, the following at a minimum should be noted:

• United Nations News Centrehttp://www.un.org/News/

  As mentioned above, this is the first place to check for late breaking news. For instance, each time the Security Council meets, it issues a press release summarizing its actions. Texts of resolutions (passed or vetoed) are also included in the release and the information is generally currrent within two to four hours of issuance. The caveat is that this website only tracks press releases issued by offices at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. If, for instance, a Geneva based agency maintains New York office then they can and will issue press releases through this portal. If they do not, however, then other news websites should be consulted for late breaking news.

• United Nations News Centre at Geneva http://www.unog.ch/

  The Geneva Office serves as the headquarters for a variety of UN bodies. Many of the disarmament and human rights organizations are based here and their releases will emanate from this news centre as a result.

• United Nations Information Service (Vienna) http://www.unvienna.org/

  The Vienna office also serves as the headquarters for a number of UN bodies, most motably in the fields of international law, narcotics and nuclear energy. Unfortunately, this press release site is not easy to navigate and includes releases from both News York and Vienna. Depending on the topic, it may be easier to go directly to the issuing body’s web site to locate current information.

There will, however, be times when the material remains elusive despite a search of the various press and PR web resources. When this is the case, determine the issuing body and check their website directly. The United Nations is by no means as centralized as it may appear, particularly when it comes to bodies whose field offices are far removed from New York, Geneva or Vienna. The Official Web Site Locator for the UN System of Organizations, available at: http://www.unsystem.org/ should be used to locate the body’s home page from which other means of access to news and publication announcements will appear.

Mike McCaffrey / September 12, 2003

updated by Amanda Wakaruk / July 10, 2009