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Library Guides

United Nations Documents: Researching UN Issues

Guide to Drew University's United Nations Materials.

Where to start?

  • Index to UN Systems Programs - Alphabetical list of issues considered by General Assembly and Social and Economic Council agencies and related bodies devoted to social or economic development, with hyperlinks to relevant websites.
  • The Yearbook of the United Nations (341.23 UN58y yr) provides coverage of UN issues by year. The latext edition for this valuable resource is 2003. The Drew Library archives the Yearbook back to 1945 in the United Nations section located in the Rose building (map). The most current edition of the Yearbook is shelved by the Reference Desk.
  • Searching United Nations Documents
  • Google UN - search web pages registered with the UN using Google's search engine. Check out the tab links at the top of the page for more organized searching. The Databases link is particularly helpful.
  • United Nations Multimedia - News articles, radio, television and more.
  • Encyclopedia of the United Nations  (Ref 341.2302 M822e)
  • Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements  (Ref 341.2303 O832e)
  • Key Resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, 1946-1996  (Ref 341.2322 U581u)

Researching Issues

  • Search the Drew Catalog.
  • Since specific UN bodies/committees/conferences focus on particular topics, it is important to identify those entities which are most relevant to you topic. The Organization of the UN gives an overview of the organization of the United Nations and provides access to numerous bodies and organizations.
  • Searching UN Documents Online provides description and links to various UN databases, both large general databases such as UNBISnet and smaller more focused databases which provide access to maps, letters, press releases, statistics and more.
  • Document symbols explains the UN's unique classification system. Document symbols are useful for finding print documents in Drew's UN collection (map), for finding items in the Dag Hammarskjold Library, and for finding online documents in the ODS database.
  • The following subscription databases are relevant for United Nations research: Columbia International Affairs Online (CAIO); LexisNexis;World News (databases available to Drew community from the Research Resource page).

United Nations research guides

Questions? Need Help? Email reference@drew.edu

Drew University Library, http://www.drew.edu/library