Introduction

Librarians need to have basic knowledge of the most well-know intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), especially the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. IGOs are responsible for regulating many global activities and are important sources of statistics, especially for developing countries that do not have the means to collect, compile, and publish data on their own. In addition, IGOs publish numerous reports about their member states and the issues of greatest concern to each organization.

IGOs can be distinguished from NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) using these characteristics:

• IGOs are formed through formal instruments and have a charter, which is a foundational document that states the purpose and aims of the organization. IGOs have permanent administrative bodies such as secretariats.
• An IGO has at least three member states. Members of IGOs are sovereign nations or recognized states.
• NGOs are generally independent organizations founded around a theme or established to perform a particular function. Examples of well-known NGOs include Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Oxfam, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

IGOs may fall into various categories. For example, they may be based on geographic regions (global, regional, transcontinental), or they may coalesce around a particular area of interest such as human rights, technical standards, public health, or agriculture.

The United Nations (UN)

Although it may be the most well-known intergovernmental organization in the world, the UN is not the oldest. It was formed in 1945 as an organization dedicated to promoting peace and international cooperation. Representatives from each of the 193 member states form the General Assembly (GA), which is the main policymaking body of the UN. The UN Security Council, composed of 15 member states, is responsible for “the maintenance of international peace and security.” Five of the Security Council members are permanent: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The remaining 10 members are elected for two-year terms by the GA. The leader of the UN, the Secretary-General, is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council and is the chief administrative officer of the UN.^[1]

The UN is financed through assessments on each member country, based on several factors including debt burden, national income, and an adjustment for low per capita income countries. The U.S. is assessed the maximum, 22 percent. In contrast, Japan’s assessment is 8.56 percent and that of Burkina Faso is .003 percent.^[2] No other country comes close to paying as much as the U.S., so it is understandable that politicians complain about other countries’ relying too heavily on the U.S. to fund the UN. However, for many years the U.S. has withheld part of its dues as a way of demanding reforms at the UN, and as of 2017 the U.S. was $883 million in arrears.^[3]

The UN is organized into a number of departments and subagencies, referred to as organs. The main organs are the General Assembly, the Secretariat, the Economic and Social Council, the Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, and the International Court of Justice. There are five regional commissions for Europe, Africa, Latin American and the Carribean, Asia and the Pacific, and Western Asia. The UN has offices in New York (headquarters), Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. Furthermore, the UN comprises many funds and programs, such as the United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF, and the World Food Program. The UN’s Archives and Records Management Section in New York City primarily serves UN researchers but is open to others. The archives house the papers of former secretaries-general of the UN as well as records of the Secretariat, peacekeeping and field missions, and the UN’s predecessor organizations. A small number of documents have been scanned and are available online. 

Types of Documents and Publications

The UN’s output, like that of other IGOs, can basically be divided into three categories: official documents/records, publications, and archival records. It’s important to understand the terminology used for categories of UN publications. The term mimeo refers to a reproduction technology called mimeography that was once used to cheaply reproduce documents. These documents are also referred to as masthead documents. Mimeos consist of working documents submitted to a principal organ or a subsidiary organ of the United Nations for consideration, usually in connection with items on the agenda. An example is Creation of Employment and Income-earning Opportunities for Vulnerable Groups in the Pacific.^[4]

The Official Document System (ODS) is a full-text database developed to replace the need to maintain these collections of paper mimeos. However, it does not yet include all of the retrospective masthead documents, so librarians must rely on other sources to obtain copies of many older documents. Libraries that once had shelves filled with single-sheet mimeo documents have mostly turned to online access or rely on the UN microfiche set from Readex (discussed below) due to space issues.

Official records “are a series of printed publications relating to the proceedings of the principal organs of the United Nations or certain United Nations conferences; they include verbatim or summary records of the meetings of the organ concerned, annexes and supplements.”^[5] An example is Verbatim Record of the 1694th Meeting of the Trusteeship Council.^[6]

Press releases are an important source of information about the actions of various committees and bodies. When you read the text of a resolution, you may find that it is written in a bureaucratic style that is not very easy to follow. Press releases provide a kind of layperson’s summary. For instance, a General Assembly resolution entitled Modalities for the High‑level Review of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway provides no background information, and one must look at the resolutions to which it refers to make sense of the revision.^[7] However, a press release places the resolution in context, noting that, “the [General] Assembly called for the full and effective implementation of the commitments, programmes and targets adopted at the third International Conference on Small Island Developing States.”^[8]

UN publications are, as the name implies, any written material that is issued by or for the United Nations to the general public, in contrast to the internal documents described above. Papua New Guinea Trade Policy Framework is an example of a publication.^[9] The UN also publishes many periodicals, including statistical publications and general interest periodicals such as the UN Chronicle, a magazine that reports on the activities of the UN in layperson’s language.

The Dag Hammarskjöld Library (DHL) at UN headquarters has produced a number of very helpful guides about different aspects of the UN. The guides explain the various UN bodies and their documentation, the UN’s budget, voting at the UN, and many other topics. Librarians at DHL also assist non-affiliated librarians and researchers with reference questions and locating UN documents.

Databases

The UN Digital Library (UNDL) provides access to Official Records, votes, maps, speeches, and public domain material. Full text is available for born-digital content and bibliographic records are included for print UN documents from 1979 forward. UNDL incorporates the former online catalog of DHL, known as UNBISnet. The UN uses a thesaurus rather than subject headings for its subject classification.

Access UN, an online subscription database published by Newsbank/Readex, was a comprehensive index to UN publications and documents, but it was far from complete. It covered Official Records, masthead documents, draft resolutions, meeting records, UN sales publications, and the UN treaty series citations. Documents listed in the database are available in the accompanying microfiche set. Unfortunately, Readex retired the online version of the Access UN database in March 2024. Some libraries have CD-ROM versions entitled Index to United Nations Documents and Publications.

The UN iLibrary is a subscription database that contains selected full-text publications covering international peace and security, human rights, economic and social development, climate change, international law, governance, public health, and statistics. Content includes books, journals, databases, working papers, and other series. Most titles were published between 2010 and the present. The database is the replacement for the distribution of printed sales publications and is available on the OECD iLibrary platform, so libraries that already subscribe to OECD iLibrary do not have to pay an additional subscription fee for the UN iLibrary.

ODS, the Online Document System, is the replacement for printed mimeos, described above. ODS includes full text official UN documentation from the UN office in New York (beginning 1993), the Geneva UN office (beginning 1997), and from various UN organizations. ODS also includes selected documents published between 1946 and 1993, including all resolutions of the principal organs, all documents of the Security Council, and the General Assembly Official Records. Note that ODS does not include content such as treaties, the UN Yearbook, press releases, or sales publications. Furthermore, older documents are scans that apparently were not processed through an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system, so they may not be full-text searchable.

WorldCat has a great many records for UN documents and publications, but a significant number of documents are not represented in WorldCat, especially those from the first decade of the UN’s existence. Not all bibliographic records in WorldCat contain the document symbols (see below), which are needed to locate and retrieve the documents in many library collections.

Outreach

The UN has several outreach activities that libraries can participate in or use. The UN offers its own web TV channel which broadcasts meetings, conferences, press briefings, and other proceedings. The videos are available in one or more of the UN’s official languages.

Model UN is an educational program for high school students that simulates what it is like to serve in the GA, Security Council, or other UN body. Years ago, students used to visit libraries to do research for model UN scenarios, but today most students rely on online resources.

The UN designates international years or decades to bring attention to various issues, and many institutions build programming around these themes. For instance, International Women’s Year was 1975, 1983-1992 was United Nations Decade for Disabled Persons, and 2019 was the International Year of Indigenous Languages. United Nations Day (October 24) commemorates the date on which the UN Charter came into force. Libraries and other organizations celebrate UN day with exhibits, speeches, and other observances.

UN Depository Libraries

DHL is located in UN headquarters in Manhattan and serves member nations and the various administrative divisions of the UN. It is not open to the general public. It runs the UN depository program, indexing services, and outreach. The UN established a depository library system in 1946 to disseminate its official publications. Currently, there are 348 UN depository libraries in 135 countries throughout the world, of which 44 are in the U.S. In addition, many libraries selectively collect the publications of the UN without participating in its depository program so that they can pick and choose what they receive.

United Nations depository libraries are required to:

• Place the material received in the care of qualified library staff;
• Keep the material received in good order at their institutions;
• Make the material received accessible to the general public, free of charge, at reasonable hours;
• Make the material received available through interlibrary loan, photocopying or other means to users who cannot easily visit the depositories concerned;
• Pay the annual contribution, if applicable, promptly.

The UN depository system has undergone tremendous changes in the past decade. In 2013, the UN’s printing plant in New York was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy. As a result, the UN ceased distribution of most printed documents. The UN originally intended to make documents available for free through a portal similar to GovInfo. However, what happened instead is that they put selected sales publications into the UN iLibrary, whose subscription price is far more than the fee depositories were paying for printed documents. This means that depository libraries now receive very little material in print.

Today, UN depository libraries perform two main functions: to provide access to the legacy print and microform collections, and to offer expertise to patrons who are looking for UN information wherever it resides. Of course, a library can perform these services without being a depository, which brings into question the value of continuing to maintain depository status if little is actually being deposited. Still, many libraries, especially large research libraries and national libraries, hold extensive retrospective collections of UN materials. Many UN depository libraries and other libraries with substantial collections of UN and other IGO publications have created guides to their holdings. Using other libraries’ guides can be a helpful approach when you are researching an intergovernmental organization.

Reference and Research Strategies

We can categorize reference questions related to the UN and other IGOs into two groups: questions about the proceedings or activities of a particular IGO, and questions that can be answered by using IGO-produced information. As with any type of government information, it’s important to remember that the organization may not be the best source of information about itself. For example, a patron looking for the text of a particular resolution would need to consult a compilation of the agency’s resolutions, but a patron who wants analysis of the IGO’s activities in a specific country might want to consult both IGO and external resources. During the reference interview, it is helpful to have the following questions in mind:

• Which agencies publish information relevant to the topic?
• Is the question related to a particular UN initiative such as Water for Sustainable Development?
• If the researcher is looking for data or statistics, which specific indicators are needed?
• Can the answer be found in official records, publications, or archival records? This may determine whether to use a document index, a catalog, or an archival finding aid.
• To which UN topics is the inquiry related (e.g., decolonization, peacekeeping, etc.)? This information can be used to direct the researcher to a subject guide created by the IGO or another library.^[10]

Bibliographic Control, Classification, and Shelving Arrangements

Indexes

The Index to Proceedings is the most comprehensive set of indexes to UN documents and is essential for identifying documents produced prior to 1979. Indexes cover the Economic and Social Council, General Assembly, Security Council, and Trusteeship Council. Fortunately, DHL has digitized the full run of indexes from 1946 to the present. DHL also produces indexes to speeches and votes.

Many libraries rely on Index to Proceedings or the databases mentioned above for bibliographic access to their UN collections and do not add bibliographic records for UN publications to their online catalogs. This is especially true for non-U.S. libraries. Other libraries selectively catalog their UN holdings, and a few have fully cataloged UN collections.

Sales Numbers

Publications may be issued with sales numbers, document symbols, or both. A sales number is a unique identifier composed of a combination of letters and roman and arabic numbers. Sales numbers are broad subject categories developed to facilitate the sale of UN publications of general interest and are assigned to both monographs and periodicals. In sales catalogs and other descriptions, the order of the elements is the language code (e.g., E for English) followed by the year, then the roman numeral for subject, and a sequential number. The language code is not always included. For instance, The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2012 carries the sales number 12.II.F.14 (12 = 2012; II.F = Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific; 14 = sequential publication number). Libraries may choose to acquire all publications issued under a particular sales number to comprehensively collect the publications of a regional commission like the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Document Symbols

Document symbols are unique accession-type numbers assigned to each document. They can be useful if, for example, you find a citation to a document and want to retrieve the full text in ODS. It is also recommended to use the document symbol in bibliographic citations. The symbols are based on letters representing each UN body, followed by slashes separating the main body abbreviation from the subsidiary body, session number, and document number. The first component of the document symbol is the UN issuing body. The secondary and tertiary components represent subsidiary bodies. Subsequent components indicate special series (if any). These initial components are followed by a number for the session and a document number and may include another component reflecting the type of document. Common components include:

A/- General Assembly

S/- Security Council

E/- Economic and Social Council

ST/- Secretariat

-/PV. … Verbatim record of meeting

-RES/- Resolution

-/Summary Summarized version

For example: A/HRC/10/30 represents General Assembly, Human Rights Council, 10th Session, document number 30.

While document symbols can be used to shelve UN documents, many libraries choose to intershelve their UN documents with the rest of the collection. The main reason for using UN symbols and other schemes is that documents can be shelved immediately and do not need to go through subject classification. Some libraries have created their own accession-number systems for IGO publications. Libraries that use document symbols can refer to United Nations Document Series Symbols, 1946-1996 to devise symbols for documents that lack them so that they may be shelved with other UN documents. Some libraries uses sales numbers to shelve publications that do not have document symbols. A best practice for catalogers is to record all numbers that appear on a publication, including document symbols or sales numbers, in each bibliographic record so that they can be searched in the online catalog. Note that some UN specialized agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization have their own documentation systems.

UN Treaties

Chapter 5 covers U.S. treaties, their indexing, and some of the main publications in which we can find them. Now, let us turn to the United Nations Treaty Collection. The UN is a depository of over 560 multilateral agreements. The UN holds the official documents and can certify their authenticity. The UN Treaty Collection website includes a database of treaties and agreements. Using the advanced search option, you can search for treaties by a number of different fields including title, registration number, party, or date. Each entry lists the registration number, title, name of sponsoring agency, United Nations Treaty Series volume number, and the list of participants. It also indicates the status: accession, ratification, or acceptance. The glossary can help to explain treaty terminology. Acceptance is generally the term used when a head of state signs a treaty but the constitution of the country prohibits the head of state from ratifying a treaty. Accession sometimes occurs after a treaty has gone into force and the country wishes to join it. Some treaties only involve certain countries, which accede to the treaty when it goes into force. Ratification is a process used by some states to enable them to become parties to a treaty. In the United States, the president can negotiate and sign a treaty, but until it is ratified by the Senate, it is not in force. The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, known as UNCLOS, is an example of a treaty that was signed by the United States in 1994 but never ratified by the Senate, so the United States is not a participant.

Like laws, treaties may be known by popular names or acronyms. For example, MARPOL is the common name for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, and the Marrakesh Treaty refers to Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled.

United Nations Specialized Agencies

In the next section, we will review the main UN specialized agencies and their most important publications. A complete list of UN-affiliated programs, funds, and agencies is on the UN website.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The FAO, established in 1945, is headquartered in Rome, with regional and subregional offices spread over the globe. The goals of the FAO are eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; elimination of poverty; and sustainable management and utilization of natural resources. It produces statistical publications on forestry, fishing, and other agriculture topics, including FAO Yearbook of Fishery and Aquaculture Statistics. Its publications also cover food security, nutrition, pest control, animal husbandry, soil conservation, rural development, and many other topics. FAO hosts several data portals, including its primary statistical resource FAOSTAT, the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), and other topical collections.

FAO is a particularly important producer of information about agriculture in small developing countries that do not have the infrastructure to do their own research and publishing. As a result, libraries rely on FAO documents for much of our information about fishing and aquaculture in Asia and the Pacific, for example. The FAO document repository contains the full text of tens of thousands of technical reports and periodicals going back to 1970. FAO publishes a number of periodicals such as Unasylva, concerning forestry and forest industries, and Tigerpaper, which covers wildlife and natural resources management for the Asia-Pacific region. The FAO’s David Lubin Memorial Library, located in Rome, is considered one of the world’s premier collections for food, agriculture, and international development. Its online catalog provides bibliographic access to the complete contents of the library dating back to 1943 as well as document delivery services. The library also houses the FAO Archives. The FAO maintains a network of 200+ depository libraries, some of which are located in the United States.

FAO conducted a world census of agriculture in 2000. It also provides guidance to countries on the administration of agricultural surveys.^[11]

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

Established in 1944, ICAO focuses on developing policies and standards to support aviation safety, improve civil aviation capacity and efficiency, enhance security, and develop ways to minimize the environmental effects of aviation. The ICAO E-Library provides access to electronic publications going back to the 1940s. The subscription-based Data+ database and app offers data about air carriers, airport traffic, and other civil aviation indicators. ICAO also publishes data about aviation safety, aircraft emissions, noise, and other aviation-related topics.

International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Founded in 1865, ITU is the oldest IGO. It is the UN agency responsible for global telecommunications. Its headquarters are in Geneva and it has several regional offices. In addition to having states as members, it also permits individual business and academic memberships. Among other coordination functions, it develops technical standards for telecommunications, maintains the international radio frequency register, and allocates global satellite orbits. ITU issues numerous publications about telecommunications standards and it publishes statistics about topics like mobile phone use, broadband internet access, and percent of households with a computer in use. The publication ITU Historical Statistics (1849-1967) covers three communications technologies: telegraph, telephone, and radio. While some current ITU publications are free, others may be purchased through the ITU catalogue.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Like many UN affiliated agencies, UNESCO began during World War II in 1945. UNESCO’s mission is to promote international cooperation in education, science, culture, and communications. Its publications and statistics focus on areas like educational attainment, literacy, cultural heritage, telecommunications infrastructure, and publishing. The UNESCO Courier is a printed and online magazine that highlights the organization’s activities around the globe. UNESCO also offers a statistics and data portal that provides a number of indicators for member countries in four broad subject categories: education and literacy; science, technology, and innovation; culture; and communication and information.

The UNESDOC digital library offers full-text access to 146,000 UNESCO publications from 1945 to the present. For instance, researchers interested in publications about Small Island Developing States, disaster preparedness, and climate change would find many resources in UNESDOC. UNESCO also hosts digital collections of photographs, films, and other multimedia resources that are being integrated into UNESDOC.

UNESCO’s library and archives in Paris serve UNESCO staff and the public who are researching UNESCO and its areas of interest. UNESCO also has several information centers in cities throughout the world, each specializing in different resources (none, however, are located in the United States).

The United States suspended its membership in UNESCO between 1984 and 2003 because the organization was seen as being too left-leaning. During that period, U.S. libraries did not receive UNESCO publications through the UN depository and had to purchase all UNESCO documents they wished to acquire. In 2011, the United States lost its voting rights in UNESCO because it stopped paying dues when the State of Palestine was admitted. Most recently, the United States again suspended its membership effective December 31, 2018, but rejoined in 2023.^[12] In addition to Palestine, the Cook Islands and Niue are also members of UNESCO, but they are not members of the UN because they are non-self-governing territories. The issues of independence, colonialism, self-government, and self-determination have been prominent throughout the history of the UN and its affiliated agencies.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)

UNIDO, formed in 1966, promotes industrialization through four main activities: technical cooperation, policy advisory, the development of normative standards, and promoting knowledge and technology transfer. The UNIDO Knowledge Hub provides technical information, tools, and training. Full-text publications and official documents are available in the publications catalogue. Subject matter includes statistics, manufacturing production, technology development, and publications about industries in specific countries. UNIDO’s Open Data Platform hosts data about UNIDO projects.  

Universal Postal Union (UPU)

UPU, established in 1874 as the General Postal Union under the Treaty of Berne, is the second-oldest IGO in the world. It exists to promote international cooperation in postal administration. Publications about postal statistics, postal policies and regulations, postal industry developments, and postal economics are available on the UPU website.

World Bank

The World Bank came into existence in 1944. The World Bank Group includes the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Finance Corporation, and other agencies. It produces economic statistics about member nations and publishes research about topics like poverty, food security, socioeconomic status and health, and sustainable development.

World Bank Open Data is the main gateway for development statistics maintained by the World Bank. It includes World Development Indicators, which covers indicators like poverty, child labor, debt, and health status for member countries. The World Bank also offers downloadable datasets and microdata to allow researchers to create their own tabulations.

Recent World Bank monographs can be found in the ProQuest subscription database Ebook Central. Many other World Bank publications are available for free in the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

WIPO was established under the 1967 WIPO Convention to promote cooperation in the protection of intellectual property (IP). Instruments of its work include several IP systems:

• The Patent Cooperation Treaty allows applicants to apply for patent protection in multiple countries through a single application.
• The Madrid System provides a unified method of applying for trademark protection.
• The Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs offers design protection in many countries.
• The Lisbon System for the International Registration of Appellations of Origin offers protection for geographical indications of origin.
• The Budapest System covers IP protection for biological material. Each of these systems has a corresponding database that allow searching for registrations.

WIPO maintains several IP and technology databases that allow researchers to find international patents, patent law, and other IP information.  The IP Statistics Database covers applications for IP protection in the areas of patents, trademarks, industrial design, and other systems.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

WMO originated in the International Meteorological Organization (IMO),  founded in 1873, and became a UN-affiliated agency in 1950. It is “the international standardization organization in the fields of meteorology, hydrology, climatology and related environmental disciplines.”^[13] Among other resources, WMO produces a database of meteorological terms, Meteoterm. WMO’s E-library includes publications on weather, natural hazards, climate change, water, and other topics.

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

The emphasis of UNWTO, founded in 1975, is on sustainable tourism development for economic growth. Its Tourism Statistics portal allows retrieval of the number of arrivals, employment, and tourism establishments for reporting countries. UNWTO publishes several statistical compilations on tourism, including the Yearbook of Tourism Statistics and Compendium of Tourism Statistics. In addition to having depository libraries, UNWTO has embraced the concept of a knowledge network that links research and information exchange. The subscription-based UNWTO E-library provides access to many of its publications, some of which are also available online for free.

World Health Organization (WHO)

You may have heard about WHO in connection with disease outbreaks like COVID-19, Zika, or Ebola. In addition to providing guidance and expertise on public health matters, WHO conducts research and produces statistics about diseases, conditions, public health, and sanitation. WHO is also concerned with mental health and socioeconomic factors in health status. WHO’s headquarters is located in Geneva and it has several regional offices as well as offices in member states. The organization has established a number of working groups and committees dedicated to addressing specific health issues like tuberculosis, maternal and child health, and tobacco use. WHO came into existence in 1948.

The WHO Library is the principal public health library in the world. Its online catalog, WHOLIS, provides bibliographic access to the library’s collections. The Global Index Medicus database is a means of accessing global public health literature produced by and within low- and middle-income countries. IRIS, the WHO digital library, contains the reports of many of these expert committees and working groups. Librarians should be aware that distribution of these committees’ output is often limited.

WHO’s annual publication World Health Statistics compiles health statistics from member states. It covers topics such as access to health care and diseases of concern. WHO’s Global Health Observatory provides access to hundreds of health indicators for WHO’s 194 member countries. WHO publishes annual statistical reports like Global Tuberculosis Report and a monthly Bulletin with peer-reviewed articles focusing on public health in developing countries. In addition, it produces monographs on a wide variety of health topics. Most of its publications are freely available in IRIS.

United Nations Affiliated Organizations

The following IGOs are not official agencies of the UN, but they have agreements with the UN. Some predate the creation of the UN.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

WTO, established in 1995, is concerned with rules of trade and settling trade disputes between member countries. The WTO statistics portal includes links to WTO’s regular statistical reports and mapping products. It provides access to merchandise trade and trade in services statistics, market access indicators, non-tariff information, and other indicators. You might wonder what the difference between the data available in UN Comtrade (discussed in Chapter 6) and WTO’s databases is. While UN Comtrade offers imports and exports of commodities and services, the WTO’s data tracks customs duties, tariffs, and trade barriers. WTO data only includes WTO member countries, so UN Comtrade covers more countries.

All of the publications of WTO’s predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), are available online through the WTO website. In addition, Stanford University has scanned its GATT collection and created the GATT Digital Library 1947—1994. WTO Documents Online is a gateway to WTO official publications from 1995-forward. The WTO iLibrary is a full-text subscription resource for electronic WTO publications. Print publications are available for sale via the WTO Online Bookshop.

Non-UN IGOs

Since there are thousands of IGOs, this section will limit discussion to some of the better-known IGOs. Libraries typically collect selected publications from the IGOs that cover their areas of interest. In addition to IGOs based on regional interests, there are also IGOs related to industries, economic interests, and trade partners. Some IGOs, such as the European Union, have established depository library systems, some of which are still operating. The following discussion is based on the organizational scheme used by James A. Church and Kenya Flash.^[14]

Regional Organizations

African Union (AU)

AU began as the Organization for African Unity in 1963. Its 55 members are the nations in continental Africa. Like the UN, AU publishes books, conference proceedings, and statistics related to the economic, social, and cultural interests of its members, including the African Statistical Yearbook. The AU Common Repository houses the AU’s official documents.

Arab League

The Arab League, or League of Arab States, is a pan-Arab organization established in 1945. Its 22 members are countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The General Secretariat has a library that serves member nations and collects and catalogs the League’s official documents and publications. In 2014, the League announced a project to digitize its historical documents. Note that many documents are available only in Arabic.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

ASEAN was founded in 1967 to promote regional peace and stability through mutual cooperation in economic, cultural, and social endeavors. Like other IGOs, it publishes an annual statistical yearbook and offers downloadable data covering demographics, trade, transportation, and economics. The EU is one of ASEAN’s most important partners. The ASEAN Secretariat Resource Centre, ASEAN’s library,  has links to ASEAN publications, meeting reports, official documents, and other material.

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe, founded in 1949 via the Treaty of London, has 46 member states, of which 27 are members of the European Union. Until 2022, the Russian Federation was a member. The Council works to promote democracy and uphold human rights in Europe through agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights and institutions like the European Court of Human Rights. Many of its publications are available online for free and it also operates an online bookstore.

European Union (EU)

The EU began in 1957 as the European Economic Community, created to foster economic and political cooperation among member nations. Most of the EU member countries share a common currency, the Euro. Like the UN, the EU has a structure similar to that of national governments with executive (European Commission), legislative (European Parliament and Council), and judicial (Court of Justice) functions. The EU publishes statistics and reports on issues of interest to its members such as immigration, agriculture, the environment, transportation, trade, and energy. Because the EU provides aid to many non-European nations, it also publishes data about countries outside the EU. In addition, the EU issues legislative and regulatory materials. The European Commission Library offers access to many of the publications through its e-library. A number of libraries in North America are depositories for EU documents and maintain informative guides about the EU and its information products, such as the one by the library at the University of California at Berkeley. Although the EU never formally ended its depository program, it has now implemented the EU Legal Deposit program, which defines the content to be physically or digitally deposited with the EU Publications Office.^[15]

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Twelve nations in the Asia-Pacific area formed APEC in 1989 to promote economic cooperation and prosperity. It now has 21 members in the Pacific Rim, including the United States. Its publications mainly cover economic development and trade. The Meeting Document Database hosts APEC’s official documents.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

NATO was formed at the beginning of the Cold War in 1949 to counter the power of the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern European countries. It has maintained armed forces throughout Europe and provides military training and guidance worldwide. Currently, it has 29 members, all in Europe except for the United States. Some eastern European countries that were formerly part of the Soviet sphere of influence are now NATO members.

NATO’s e-Library hosts official documents and treaties dating back to 1949. The NATO Library has also prepared a set of LibGuides that provide extensive information and resources about NATO’s activities. There are sixteen NATO depository libraries, mostly in Europe and the Middle East, with one in South Korea. Many libraries in the United States have collections of NATO documents, even though they are not depositories.

International Energy Agency (IEA)

Founded in 1974 in response to the global energy crisis of 1973-1974, the IEA’s mission is to foster cooperation in energy security and policy. The agency’s founding members were countries in Europe plus the United States. Additional nations in Europe have joined and a few Latin American countries will one day join Mexico as members. The IEA also has several associate members in various parts of the world. The agency collects energy data for 140 countries worldwide, with coverage from 1970 to the present. Many of its reports are available for free on the IEA website and some data is in the OECD iLibrary mentioned above. The IEA also offers the Energy Prices Database by subscription.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

In contrast to the IGOs based on geographic location, OPEC is an industry-based organization that coordinates the petroleum policies of its members, which are mostly oil-producing countries in Africa and the Middle East plus Ecuador and Venezuela. Membership has fluctuated over its 58-year history, with several countries having exited or left and rejoined (for example, Indonesia was once a member). OPEC produces statistics about oil reserves, production, prices, and taxes among other indicators. Its publications and data are freely available online and through an app.

Additional Resources

• The Union of International Associations is a nonprofit research institute for IGOs and NGOs. It publishes the Yearbook of International Organizations  and the International Congress Calendar, an annual listing of international meetings, as well as subject-specific reference works about international organizations.
• Stanford University Library has developed an IGO custom search engine that searches many UN and other IGO sites at once. Selected IGO statistical sources are covered in Chapter 6.
• Policy Commons is a site that crawls content from a variety of government, IGO, and NGO websites and harvests their publications, adds metadata, and adds them to its database. A free account is required to search and download content.
• The INTL-DOC listserv is a discussion group for librarians who deal with IGO and foreign government materials.

Insider’s Library

Aufricht, H. (1951). Guide to League of Nations publications: a bibliographical survey of the work of the League, 1920-1947. Columbia University Press.

The most comprehensive guide to the documents of the League of Nations and its affiliated organizations, the ILO, and the Permanent Court of International Justice.

Church, J. (2021). The international governmental organization information landscape. In K. Kassel, J. Church, & K. Tallman (Eds.), The government information landscape and libraries (pp. 83-99). International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/842/1/ifla-professional-reports-nr-137-en.pdf

James Church, a librarian at UC Berkeley, is one of the foremost U.S. experts on intergovernmental organizations and their publications. In this chapter, he reviews the current publishing trends in IGOs, availability of publications in online repositories, and information policies of IGOs.

Europa Publications. (2013). Europa directory of international organizations. Routledge.

The Europa directory gives more in-depth information about a much smaller number of IGOs than the Yearbook of international organizations listed below. It is very expensive, so libraries must carefully consider its value compared to what is freely available online.

Gower, J. (2013). The European Union handbook. Routledge.

The handbook provides an overview of the EU’s history, politics, economic policies, organization, and legislative process.

Hajnal, P. I. (1991). Directory of United Nations documentary and archival sources. Academic Council on the United Nations System, Kraus International Publications, United Nations.

This directory lists publication series, compendia, microfiche sets, archival collections, and reference sources of and about the United Nations System to aid researchers, librarians, and archivists.

Hajnal, P. I. (Ed.). (1997). International information: documents, publications, and electronic information of international governmental organizations. (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

This work provides overviews of the publications of the main IGOs, including the UN, EU, OECD, League of Nations, and a few others. It also introduces collection development for IGO publications, the major commercial publishers, and reference work with IGO documents and publications. Each chapter’s bibliography contains a wealth of references to specialized publications about IGOs.

International Labour Office, Central Library and Documentation Branch. (1967). Subject guide to publications of the International Labour Office, 1919-1964. ILO

International Labour Office, Central Library and Documentation Branch. (1987). Subject guide to publications of the International Labour Office, 1980-85. ILO.

These two publications are useful guides to the historical publications of the ILO.

Mangoldt, H. von, Rittberger, R., & Knipping, F. (Eds.) (1997). The United Nations system and its predecessors. Oxford University Press.

A compilation of documents related to the founding of the UN and its predecessor organizations.

Morrison, A. M., & Mann, B. J. (2004). International government information and country information: A subject guide. Greenwood Press.

Although dated, this volume is useful for its subject approach to IGOs and their publications. It lists many helpful IGO and non-governmental guides and web resources for IGO information.

New Zealand. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2014). United Nations handbook. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Perhaps the best source of information about the UN is this handbook, which is not published by the UN but rather by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It covers the organization and protocols of the UN and its various bodies. It is available online for free and is also available as a smartphone app. It is more up to date and accessible than the official UN guide.

Nugent, N. (2017). Government and politics of the European Union. 8th ed. Palgrave, MacMillan Education.

The leading textbook on the EU, this book covers the history, institutions, member states, operations, and policies of the EU.

Osmańczyk, E. J.; Mango, A. (Ed.). (2003). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. 3rd ed. Routledge.

As the title implies, this is an encyclopedia about the UN, consisting of over 6,000 articles about the various bodies, activities, history, and areas of interest encompassed by the UN. It is mainly useful for historical research given that it hasn’t been updated since the third edition was published in 2003.

UNESCO General Information Programme. (1999). Guide to the archives of intergovernmental organizations. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000115937

This guide describes the content of the archives of several IGOs and their access policies. Unfortunately, it has not been updated, so researchers must contact archives to learn their current access policies and procedures. Nonetheless, it provides more information than what is available on many of the organizations’ websites.

Union of International Associations. (2019). Yearbook of international organizations. Brussels: Union of International Associations. http://www.uia.org/yearbook

The yearbook lists “over 37,500 active and approximately 38,000 dormant international organizations from 300 countries and territories.” It covers both IGOs and NGOs. It is available in print or as an online subscription database. There is an open online version that is free, but it does not contain all of the information in the print or subscription versions.

United Nations. Yearbook of the United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/yearbook

The Yearbook of the United Nations is the official publication that summarizes the UN’s activities during a given year. All of the yearbooks are available online for free, but they are published several years after the fact. The Yearbook discusses peacekeeping activities, resolutions, treaties, and other actions and activities. It also covers the major activities of the UN specialized agencies. Chapters cover peacekeeping; human rights; economic and social policy, especially related to sustainable development; and other UN activities in various regions and countries. A particularly useful feature is the index of resolutions and decisions, a handy resource when a patron is looking for the text of a particular resolution or a list of signatories to an action.

United Nations. Department of Public Information. (2017). Basic facts about the United Nations. United Nations.

This UN-published reference work provides basic information about the UN’s organization, structure, and activities. The English-language version is not available online and must be purchased, but you can download Arabic, Chinese, or Urdu editions for free.

Williams, R. V. (1998). The information systems of international inter-governmental organizations: A reference guide. Ablex Publishing Corporation. 

This guide explains the main publications and information systems of UN and non-UN IGOs and covers more organizations than Hajnal’s guide. Its greatest value is the listings of bibliographies of each organization’s publications.