Finding UN Materials Elizabeth Wells Bodleian Law Library November 2009.
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Transcript of Finding UN Materials Elizabeth Wells Bodleian Law Library November 2009.
This session UN Publication or UN Document Numbers & Symbols 5 databases
Press release Un-i-que UN documentation centre UN’s ODS UNBisnet
Some useful URLS for Research guides UN news & current awareness
UN paperwork
TreatiesResolutions
and decisions
Press releases
Voting records
Speeches
Annual reports
Reports from UN organs and their subsidiary bodies, missions…
Publications aimed at the public
Statistics
Minutes of meetings
Draft documents
Country reportsICJ decisions and opinions
ICJ statutes & other docs
UN Publications“Sales publications”
intended for public consumption
e.g. UN Yearbooks
Press releases
Dolly the Sheep facing her public
Numbers: Sales Publications Unique combination of letters and
numbers E.07.III.A.9
Letter - language of the publication; Two Arabic numerals - year of publication Roman numeral (+letter) - subject of the
publication or the issuing body www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/symbol1.htm
Arabic number - sequential number
Finding UN publications in print
Bodleian official UN depository since 1950
Official Papers Reading Room Check the library catalogue for the shelf
mark – most post 1990 sales publications are on the OLIS
Ask in Official Papers
UN publications online Online – unlikely to find the full text
especially with older material
UNBisNet primarily 1979 on (a catalogue with links to full texts when available)
HeinOnline UN Law Collection v.g. for yearbooks, has other things too
Web site of the UN organisation which produced it
A/C.6/38/SR.73??
Hein has Summary Records of the General Assembly, Sixth Committee from 1st(1946) to 38th(1983) all published ie not 19(1964)
HeinOnline – United Nations Law Collection Library
Press Releases Advanced search option on press release
homepage http://www.un.org/apps/pressreleases/
allows you to search an archive of press releases back to October 1995
Index to Press Release Symbols via Help http://www.un.org/en/unpress/English_Symbols.html
UN Press Release website: advanced search
Select Choice of GA, SC,
ESC, Sec-Gen, Press
Conferences
Options vary to suit Select
choice eg GA options Plenary or each of 6
Committees
UN Documents Created by a UN body as part of its
own processes, primarily for internal use
Includes Official RecordsEg proceedings, resolutions, working
papers, decisions, reports
some are offered for sale, but this was not primary purpose
ODSUNBISNETUN-I-QUE
More about these soon
Browse
SimpleDrillDown
Documentation Centre
OK for more obvious, top level documents
http://www.un.org/en/documents/
UN Document Symbols Unique identifier for precise searching
First Letter = parent organ After / either Letter (plus number) = subsidiary
organ Or Letters indicating type of document (e.g
resolution, report) Sequential number (sometimes year indicated) May also be suffixes indicating
revisions/additions to a document
UN Document examples A/52/100 – General Assembly document
from 52 session
S/1997/100 – Security Council document issued in 1997
E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/1 – document of the Sub Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Commission on Human Rights
Un-i-que Reference tool developed by the UN
Dag Hammarskjöld Library Searches for titles only Results are brief but include UN
document symbol Useful for searching for series /
recurrent publications (e.g. annual reports, irregular reports etc) – listed chronologically
http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf
Convert a title to a document symbol or a sales publication number
Search Tip : finding periodic report of country under HR obligation type
[Country name] – periodic – [keyword] * for variants Select Match ALL these words (Boolean AND)
UN Documents in print Official Papers Reading Room
UN documents are NOT catalogued on OLIS
To find them you need the document number
Official records of the 4 main bodies (GA,SC,ESC, TC) Index to Proceedings
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/itp.htm#itp
UN Documents online Full text often available
Resolutions from 1945 on? Other types from 1993 on
Databases to try ODS of the UN UNBisnet Web site of parent organisation
ODS UN NY & Geneva
parliamentary dox 1993 – (inc. resolutions & decisions)
UN Vienna dox 1997- Selected earlier inc. Resolutions 1946- of
GA, SC, ESC & Trusteeship C
Sales publications Press releases Treaties Information Bulletins
from D of Public Information
ODS
Searching by document symbol is easy
Searching by subject is more difficult Older documents are being added all
the time Introduction to ODS (powerpoint)http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/
train.htm
Search by document number or for words in the full text. May not pick up all resolutions.
UN documents and resolutions. Search by document number, dates/sessions, using thesaurus or full text
Search viaSymbol
A/RES/55/2&
Change Truncation
ToNone
Navigating (huge) Lexicon – scroll down + click Next to drill down length of list
ODS reads document symbols from L to RRight Truncate search will return all beginning with that character string
Sort by Symbol means the shortest string is top of results
Clicking underlined symbol links to screen with indexing information about the document & where you have choice oflanguages/formats for viewing the text
Advantage of Pdf
Document will be exactly as printed, with original formatting, reproducing all graphics, maps and annexes.
ODS Advanced Search
Advanced Search Screen is essential if you want to be sure of finding Resolutions
eg A/RES/34/180
First select a database
NB post 1993
resolutions are in
UN Documents
Subject thesaurus. To jump to the correct part of the alphabet type a few letters in the search box and then click Lexicon e.g. wom + click to find subject headings which start women
Left Truncation allows you to omit the first part of the Symbol – useful if you know you are
looking for a resolution but not sure if its from the General Assembly
(“A” first) or Security Council
(“S”)
Example: you want to find letters addressed to the Secretary General in 2007 relating to Iraq or a letter but don’t know exactly
In SymbolS/2007
&Symbol Truncation
- Right
Words of TitleIraq
Full Text SearchingIf you have no idea about UN Symbols
From both Simple and Advanced Search Screens
Use “Find any of the words” if your search term has many synonyms
Use the “Boolean Operators” option if you understand these
NOTE: Lots more information with examples available by clicking on the “Help” button in ODS.
Full text search:1. Choose from “Type of full text search”2. Enter terms in “Full text search box”.
Boolean connectors in ODS are • AND, OR, AND NOT, SENTENCE • * to truncate (e.g. child*)• ? Wildcard (e.d. wom?n)• Use brackets to group operators
No results???? A lot of search terms? try removing one
Try truncating words by using the asterisk character
Take care with spelling or use wild card ? “ru?d lub?ers”
ODS requires that you use hyphens and accents in searches when they are used in a document.
UNBisNet Primary online index 1979 - Bibliographic records for UN
documents and sales publications Link to full text where available Older items being added gradually
Links to full text resolutions 1946- Voting records for adopted resolutions
Security council 1946- General assembly 1983-
Citations to speeches 1983-
Search by keyword or browse for UN Documents, Resolutions, Sales Publications plus outside publications about the UN
Search by keyword or browse voting records
Search by keyword or browse index to speeches
http://unbisnet.un.org
Note: If searching by document symbol/sales number keep punctuation and slashes egE/CN.4/2000/42
UNBisNet Keyword Search Screen
Use AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms from more than one field
Use drop down to limit your search to particular document types (e.g. UN Docs only, Resolutions only etc)
Sort options
Click on title for full bibliographic details
Full text if available
Brief results screen
Links to full text if available
Clickable list of “Subject headings” – can be useful for searching for similar documents. If you click on the link you will be taken to (nearly) the correct part of the alphabetical list of subject headings. From here click on the link to view documents for each subject
Finds all documents from the particular body/ committee for the session. Clicking on the link will take you to the correct part of the numerical list of document numbers
Full results screen
Free e-Research guides
Am Soc International Lawhttp://www.asil.org/un1.cfm
Duke Law School UN guide @ http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/un.html
Guides from the Dag Hammarskjold Library
http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/quick.htm
Still no luck?
http://www.unsystem.org/ gives links to the web sites of the main UN bodies. A document you have failed to find anywhere else might be posted on a subsidiary’s website
Just not available as e-resource?
The Official Papers Reading Room (Radcliffe Camera), its staff and paper resources will do their best to meet your request
[email protected] www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/official_papers
Term time: Mon-Fri 9.00-21.30, Sat 9.00-12.30 Vacation: Mon-Fri 9.00-18.30, Sat 9.00-12.30
Useful websites: News and current awareness
UN news - http://www.un.org/News/
The UN Chronicle (online edition) http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/
UN Pulse blog on new and recent UN documents - http://unhq-appspub-1.un.org/lib/dhlrefweblog.nsf
Daily Journal of the United Nations http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/En/lateste.pdf lists meetings, conferences, press conferences, new documents
UNIC Newsletter http://www.unicwash.org/newsl/newsl.html
recent/forthcoming events, links to archived issues of special reports