Understanding how to navigate the vast amount of information available from United Nations sources can only enhance a librarian’s ability to retrieve information for an increasingly global legal world and economy. Many librarians are aware of the UN websites but are unfamiliar with how to locate and search these databases.
At this year’s AALL Annual meeting, Maritina Paniagua and Susan Kurtas of the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld Library (www.un.org/Depts/dhl/) gave a presentation on how to effectively use the UN databases. Rosemary LaSala of St. John’s University served as coordinator and moderator of the program. In their presentation, Maritina and Susan demonstrated different searching techniques and identified and described redesigned U.N. databases. The four research tools reviewed included the United Nations Official Document System (ODS), the United Nations Bibliographic Information System (UNBISnet), and the United Nations Info Quest (UN-I-Que).
Maritina Paniagua presented first and laid the foundation by reviewing the UN organizational chart. After the organizational chart, Maritina reviewed four important U.N. resources. The UN’s organizational chart (www.un.org/aboutun/chart_en.pdf) helps identify which organization within the UN is likely to produce or maintain information of interest to you.
The UN is comprised of six principle organs. They include the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Each organ has multiplicities of subsidiary bodies. According to the presenters, researchers often need to understand the UN organ, body, and reporting structure before they can delve into the documents they are seeking.
The four research tools used to find UN documents include: (1) the United Nations Documentation: Research Guide; (2) the United Nations Bibliographic Information System (UNBISnet); (3) the United Nations Official Documents System (ODS); and (4) UN-Info-Quest (UN-I-QUE).
Susan Kurtas spoke next about some specific legal websites of the UN. Susan showed several UN document web sites. The most important among these was the United Nations Treaty Series Collection.
A few glitches remain as the conversion of the United Nations Treaty Series Collection (http://treaties.un.org/Pages/Home.aspx?lang=en) is still a work in progress. Now a free service, the United Nations Treaty Series has an advanced search feature. If the text of the treaty is available, it will be linked from the bibliographic record. Currently, it will link to a full United Nations Treaty Series volume in which the treaty appeared. This often means that when the treaty downloads, it takes a long time because it is a large file. This can be a problem in developing countries where bandwidth and older computers present more of a problem. The search of the Index is considered a “phrase search” despite that it says “keyword.” A two-word search is considered a phrase in this system.
The final resource mentioned was the new UN Audiovisual Library of International Law (www.un.org/law/avl/), which Susan said is especially useful to developing nations that might have fewer noted international legal scholars. The Historical Archives contain audio and video recordings of historic UN speeches, and photographs of UN events.
The Lecture Series contains video lectures by International Law experts in specific subject areas as well as links to related resources. The Lecture Series is non-UN content, part of their effort to assist in the teaching and study of international law, especially in the developing world.
This session was very helpful to librarians who were not familiar with how to access the many resources devoted to finding and retrieving United Nations documents. Even librarians familiar with UN document research found the session to be a good refresher. The Research Guide had been revised, and the Audi-Visual Library was new to most in the audience. Some points of confusion were clarified by the presenters who gave recommendations during the presentation and during the question and answer session that followed. Overall, everyone came away with something new they had learned during the session.
