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. You can also use the document symbol to search for this document in the ODS Advanced search:
•  Use the binocular icon to search for your country (make sure you use the proper name: example - Russian Federation, not Russia).
• 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 1999 through 2010 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

• Ratification of Human Rights concerns by countries can be found at Human Rights in the World.  
• The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices submitted annually by the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Congress are available online from 1999 to the most current report.  Print copies are available at the Drew library:  1986 through 1993 on A-level: Y 4.F 76/1-15: (YR) and 1994 onward: Y 4.IN 8/16-15: (YR). 
• University of Minnesota Human Rights Library  
• European Court of Human Rights HUDOC - free online access to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the European
• Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents - provides access to human rights information found in United Nations documents, related to countries and/or specific rights.
• Ref JC571 .A44- Amnesty International Report. See also Amnesty International. Ref JC571 .F66  - Freedom in the World and online at freedomhouse.org.

Security issues  

• Small Arms Survey - Country Case Studies. 
• Small Arms Survey - publications Disarmament publications - from the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Browse the Disarmament Yearbook Database http://disarmament.un.org/vote.nsf to see how countries voted on specific disarmament (organized by GA session).
• Small Arms and Light Weapons. 
• Peacekeeping Guide from the United Nations

Sustainable Development

• UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Division of Sustainable Development - National Information. 
• ECOLEX - A Gateway to Environmental Law

Economic Development:

• International Monetary Fund Country Information
• World Bank - Country Data
• Millennium Goals
  • Reports
  • Statistics
• Economic Commission for Africa
• Economic Commission for Latin America
• Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
• Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
• Economic Commission for Europe

Health profiles for countries -

• WHO (World Health Organization).
• International Digest of Health Legislation: WHO 
• Also try Global Issues on the UN Agenda.

Information about countries

• Official government/UN   
  • The Europa World Year Book  - Ref Counter JN1 .E85. The most concise, comprehensive way to get quick information on countries.
  • UNData - Searches across multiple databases. Also provides detailed country data. Updated data available.
  • 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 A-Z Databases 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 
• List of all United Nations searchable databases.
• 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 Reference Section on the main floor of the library. 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
• Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics - Ref JZ 1160. E53 2005
• 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. (On E-level).

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, Proquest Political Science (databases available to Drew community from the A-Z Databases by Title page).
• See also International Law.

Understanding UN Document Symbols

UN document symbols are very useful for searching, and for understanding documents pulled up from searches. The primary or first letter(s) of the symbol indicated the organ which produces the document (examples: A/- = General Assembly; UNEP/- =  United Nations  Environmental Programme); Secondary and tertiary symbols indicate if a subset of the larger organs have produced the document (examples: -/AC..../- = ad hoc committee;  -/WG.../- = working group). Additional components indicate the nature of the document (examples: -/CRP..... = conference room paper;  -/SR..... = summary records of meeting). The final symbol or component reflects modifications of the original text (examples: -/Add... = addendum; -/Summary.....=  summarized version).

EXAMPLE: General Assembly, World Conference on Human Rights, Preparatory Committee, document no. 63, addendum no. 4 = A/CONF.157/PC/63/Add.4

(adapted from Basics of UN Document Symbols)

FOR MORE EXAMPLES AND MORE EXTENSIVE EXPLANATIONS SEE: Document Symbols : United Nations Documentation

Useful United Nations research guides from University libraries and other sources

• The United Nations Scholars's Workstation, a research guide developed by the Yale University Library.
• The United Nations offers its own Research Guide.
• International Agencies and Information, from The University of Michigan Library.
• Researching the United Nations, from Globalex is very comprehensive.

Scholarly resources - recommended database. Linked from  A-Z Databases by Title

• Academic Search Premier - opt for scholarly journals.
• Proquest Research Direct - opt for scholarly journals.
• Proquest Political Science
• 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.

• Requesting an article through the ILLiad system
• Requesting an article directly from a database

Books

• Books on the United Nations are shelved on E-level under the classification number 341.23

• 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.

Search for country names (e.g. iran) or topics (e.g. economic development, peacekeeping, etc)
Click directly to a 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. 

• Requesting a book directly through Worldcat
• Requesting a book through the ILLiad system

Contact me

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