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Page link: https://uknow.drew.edu/confluence/x/0phjAQ

Citation Guides to United Nations materials: REF KF245 .U55 2005 The Bluebook. See pages: 179-184. A quick guide is available online from Newsbank .

Delegates

  • A list of United Nations ambassadors, delegates and supporting diplomatic staff by country can be found at deleGATE, the UN's member states portal. Once on the deleGATE page, opt for the Member States and Permanent Observers link to find your country (left hand side of the page).  A print copy of Permament Missions to the United Nations is shelved in the Reference collection: Ref 341.233 U58p (yr). The Member States index at deleGATE provides additional information.  
  • Information about delegates is available online from 1993 onward on the ODS database. Go to ODS Advanced, type in the following document symbol number in the symbol search box: st/sg/ser.a/ and type in the phrase "permanent missions to the united nations" in the words of the title search box. Archived digital versions of the Permanent Missions to the United Nations can be found in this database; limit your search by year for best results.  

Speeches by delegates/heads of state

  • UNBISnet provides a database of speeches delivered at the various bodies of the United nations, including the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Countil and the Trusteeship Council. 
  • Scroll down to Index to Speeches and opt for New Keyword Search. 
  • From this page, you can search by a speaker's name, a country or organization of origin, topics, speech dates and more. Choose your options from the drop down menus in the search boxes. Be careful to call your country by the official name: for example Russia is Russian Federation.  
  • To find speeches given in the General Assembly, limit your search to General Assembly in the Limits box. 
  • The Drew Library has Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly (Reference JX 1977.A44 session/part) which indexes speeches at the General Assembly for each session by corporate name/country; by speaker; and by subject. Part II lists speeches by country/people. This print resource is probably easier to use and more reliable than UNBISNET. Drew Library owns these publications from the 8th Session onward. Helpful tip: sometimes heads of States give speeches at the opening session of the General Assembly (and other venues, like the Security Council). At the end of the listing for your country (Part II of the Index to Proceedings), see if there is a section for President or Prime Minister or some such designation where speeches by heads of States would be listed. The document for these speeches will look like this: A/63/PV. numbers. Here the A represents the General Assembly, the 63 refers to the Assembly session, and the PV refers to verbatim record. Usually, the following number is a low number, like a .5 or .16. Type the document number into the _Symbol _box in the ODS Advanced database to pull up the full text of the document. You can search within the full text PDF, using the binocular icon, to find where your head of State's speech is located within the document (either search for his/her name or the name of your country.) 

United Nations voting records

  • Most UN Resolutions are adopted without a recorded vote. Only those votes that are recorded indicate how a country voted. The Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the General Assembly during a stated session is a compilation of votes taken during a specific GA session. The document lists how countries voted when a roll call vote was actually taken for a specific resolution. This document can be found on ODS Advanced. In the search box labeled Words of the title, type in the following phrase: "resolutions and decisions adopted by the general assembly during its" and search. Notice that the number 49 will appear in most of the UN document symbols in the resulting list of documents. Use the binocular icon to search for your country (make sure you use the proper name: example - Russian Federation, not Russia).The Drew Library has these documents in print, located on A-level in compact shelving.
  • The Voting Records option in UNBISnet - this option provides “the full text of voting records for all resolutions which were adopted - either without a vote or by roll-call or recorded vote - by the General Assembly beginning with its 38th session (1983-) and the Security Council beginning with its 1st year (1946-).” Most records provide only a summary of the vote (i.e.the number of yeas and nays).
  • Public Law 79-264 requires that the U.S. State Department report to Congress U.S. participation in the United Nations; the report includes a voting record for the U.S. The reports and voting record are available online from 2000 through 2006 from the State Department. A comparison of how the U.S. voted on key issues to votes by other countries is also available in these. U.S. participation in the United Nations is also available from the State Department.
  • Reports of more recent votes in the United Nations can be found at the UN's Press Releases advanced site. Search globally for recent votes, or by organization (e.g. General Assembly, etc) in the "Select" drop down box at the bottom of the Press Release page. In the "Keyword(s) in headline" box type in vote. You can change dates "Date" box. Click "Find" to search.
     

Human rights/ peace and security issues/ sustainable development/economic development/health issues - country profiles

Human Rights

Security issues  

Sustainable Development

Economic Development:

Health profiles for countries -

Information about countries

  • Government information:  
    • The Europa World Year Book  - Ref Counter JN1 .E85. The most concise, comprehensive way to get quick information on countries.
    • The CIA's World Factbook provides a lot of information about countries and international organizations. 
    • The UNPAN's (United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance) Public Administration Country Profile page provides links to the government, constitution and public laws for most countries. 
    • Country information from deleGATE. 
    • Nations of the World from the Law Library of Congress, provides many useful links to official government sites, legal guides and general resources for countries worldwide. 
    • Foreign Information About Countries, from the University of Colorado Libraries. 
    • Countries of the World - All sorts of unexpected information about countries, dating from 1989. The Country Ranks list is very interesting. 
    • Comparative International Statistics, from the US Census. 
    • NationMaster - pulls data about countries from a variety of economic and political resources. 
  • Newspapers:
    •  News and Periodical Resources on the Web. From the Library of Congress, a list of online free news services from around the world. 
    •  The database LexisNexis (Drew community only access) provides access to over 40 international newspapers. 
    • From the default search page, open up the blue News tab on the left hand side of the screen.
       
    •  Opt for Newspapers and Wires. This search page allows you to limit by Non-U.S. newspapers and wires. Foreign language newspapers and wires is another click off the News tab. Make sure you limit your time period, otherwise you may get too many results.  Click on  to see titles included in any grouping:


Determining news bias:

  • The editorial page (not the OpEd page) of a newspaper provides insight into a newspaper's bias.
  •  News Bias Explored - From the University of Michigan provides some good examples of how to identify media bias, useful activities regarding word choice and links to other sources dealing with news bias.

NGOs

  • TheNGO Database "contains information about the organizations that have Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations ECOSOC." 
  • Search this database by Field of Activity (general topic) or by a specific NGO name. 
  • Try the DPI/NGO (UN Department of Public Information, Non Governmental Organization) website. 
  • The Non-Governmental Organization Research Guide from Duke University helps you find NGO's by issues. 
  • Learn more about the relationship between NGOs and the NGLS, the United Nations at the UN-Non Governmental Liaison Service. 
  • The NGOs links page lists NGOs alpabetically and by topic. 
  • Once you have identified specific NGOs, search Academic Search Premier, ProQuest and LexisNexis Academic for scholarly articles and news stories on these organizations (databases available to Drew community from the Electronic Resources by Title ). 

Researching UN issues

The best places to begin: 

  • Index to UN Systems Programs - Thematic issues considered by UN agencies and related bodies devoted to social or economic development, with hyperlinks to relevant websites. Also try Global Issues on the UN Agenda. 
  • UN News Centre 
  • Official WEB Site Locator for the United Nations - Alphabetical list. The index to the U.N. Website provides an alphabetic site index to UN websites.  
  • A nice browseable list of many UN and UN related websites is available from the State Department. 
  • UN Conferences - link to past conferences (1994 - 2008)  
  • UN Treaty Collections 
  • United Nations Acronyms and Short Forms explained. 
  • The Yearbook of the United Nations (JZ4947 .Y43 yr) provides coverage of UN issues by year. The Drew Library archives the Yearbook back to 1945 in the United Nations section located in the Rose building. The most current print edition of the Yearbook is shelved by the Reference Desk. 
  • United Nations Multimedia - News articles, radio, television and more.
  • Encyclopedia of the United Nations  -  Ref KZ4968 .M66
  • Great Debates at the United Nations: An Encyclopedia of Fifty Key Issues, 1945-2000. - Ref KZ4968 .G67 2001
    United Nations Today (yr) - Ref JZ 4970.U658 
  • United Nations Handbook (yr) - Ref JX 1977.2.N5U55 
  • Encyclopedia of Human Rights - Ref JC 571.E673 2009 
  • Annual Review of United Nations Affairs - 341.23 A615a dates from 1959. These multi volume annual sets include an overview of UN activities for the year, GA resolutions and issues related to the Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, peacekeeping issues and the annual report from the Secretariat annual reports.

For specific issues: 

  • 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.
  • The following subscription databases are relevant for United Nations research: Columbia International Affairs Online (CAIO); LexisNexis;World News; Worldwide Political Science, ScienceDirect, Academic Search Premier, Sociological Abstracts, EconLit (databases available to Drew community from the Electronic Resources by Title page).
  • See also International Law.

Useful United Nations research guides from University libraries and other sources

Scholarly resouces - recommended database. Linked from  Resources by Title

  • Academic Search Premier - opt for scholarly journals.
  • Proquest Direct - opt for scholarly journals.
  • Columbia International Affairs Online - think tank and other public policy organization papers and articles.
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts - premier database for political science research.
  • ScienceDirect
  • EconLit
  • Sociological Abstracts
  • Ethnic News Watch - great for non U.S. viewpoints on issues.
  • For specific subject resources see: Electronic Resources by Subject.

Books

In addition to doing a Keyword search in the Drew catalog, try the Exact search page. Use the "search for" drop down box and select Subjects. Type in topic keyword. Click directly to list of books, or browse a sub-list of topics.
 
World Cat (access from Electronic Resources by Title). This database searches catalogs of over 20,000 libraries worldwide. Searching is clunky, but this database provides great access to monographic (book) scholarship. Books not available at Drew can be requested through InterLibraryLoan directly from book records found in WorldCat.

Contact me

Beth Patterson epatters@drew.edu ext. 3480. Reference Department, Drew Library.

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