1. Finding UN Materials Elizabeth Wells Bodleian Law Library November 2009

2. 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

3. UN paperwork Treaties Resolutions 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 reports ICJ decisions and opinions ICJ statutes & other docs

4. Sorting UN Publications from UN Documents

5. UN Publications “Sales publications”  intended for public consumption  e.g. UN Yearbooks  Press releases Dolly the Sheep facing her public

6. 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

7. 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

8. Law Bod Official Papers, Radcliffe Camera

9. 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

10. A/C.6/38/SR.73?? Hein has Summary Records of the General Assembly, Sixth Committee from 1 st (1946) to 38 th (1983) all published ie not 19(1964) HeinOnline – United Nations Law Collection Library

11. 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_Sy mbols.html

12. 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

13. UN Documents – may require more chasing!

14. UN Documents  Created by a UN body as part of its own processes, primarily for internal use  Includes Official Records Eg proceedings, resolutions, working papers, decisions, reports  some are offered for sale, but this was not primary purpose

15. Basic Searching http://www.un.org/en/

16. ODS UNBISNET UN-I-QUE More about these soon Browse Simple Drill Down Documentation Centre OK for more obvious, top level documents http://www.un.org/en/documents/

17. Example 2005 World Summit Documents available just by drilling down

18. www.un.org/en/additions/index.shtml Also possible shortcut if you are looking for a recent document

19. http://www.un.org/en/documents/

20. 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

21. 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

22. www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/symbol.htm

23. 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

24. http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf Convert a title to a document symbol or a sales publication number

25. It really does pay to read the Search Tips first!

26. Search Tip : finding periodic report of country under HR obligation type [Country name] – periodic – [keyword] * for variants Select Match ALL these words (Boolean AND)

27. Click on link

28. 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

29. 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

30. Official Document System http://documents.un.org

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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

34. Search via Symbol A/RES/55/2 & Change Truncation To None Navigating (huge) Lexicon – scroll down + click Next to drill down length of list

35. Drill down for text

36. Punctuation ie / Not essential Impact of “Search Results By” If you Right Truncate

37. ODS reads document symbols from L to R Right Truncate search will return all beginning with that character string Sort by Symbol means the shortest string is top of results

38. Clicking underlined symbol links to screen with indexing information about the document & where you have choice of languages/formats for viewing the text

39. Advantage of Pdf Document will be exactly as printed, with original formatting, reproducing all graphics, maps and annexes.

40. Navigating, downloading functions usually top left of pdf

41. 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

42. 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”)

43. 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 Symbol S/2007 & Symbol Truncation - Right Words of Title Iraq

44. Full Text Searching If 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.

45. 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

46. 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.

47. 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-

48. 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

49. Note: If searching by document symbol/sales number keep punctuation and slashes eg E/CN.4/2000/42 UNBisNet Keyword Search Screen Use AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms from more than one field

50. 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

51. 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

52. Free e-Research guides  Am Soc International Law http://www.asil.org/un1.cfm  Duke Law School UN guide @ http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researc hguides/un.html http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researc hguides/un.html  Guides from the Dag Hammarskjold Library

53. http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/quick.htm

54. 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

55. 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  official.papers@bodley.ox.ac.uk www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/official_papers official.papers@bodley.ox.ac.uk 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

56. Useful websites: News and current awareness  UN news - http://www.un.org/News/http://www.un.org/News/  The UN Chronicle (online edition) http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/ http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/  UN Pulse blog on new and recent UN documents - http://unhq-appspub-1.un.org/lib/dhlrefweblog.nsf 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 http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/En/lateste.pdf  UNIC Newsletter http://www.unicwash.org/newsl/newsl.html recent/forthcoming events, links to archived issues of special reportshttp://www.unicwash.org/newsl/newsl.html

57. Key printed reference works & indexes The UN Today (BOD Off Papers O.UN/I.2008.6) Abbreviated online version at http://www.un.org/aboutun/untoday/  Yearbook of the United Nations (Internat 688 U50) up to 2005– has a subject index  Encyclopaedia of the United Nations (2003) 4 vols Internat 687 E56a3