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Online Archives
UN Webpage with Links to Document Collections and Catalogs
This links to the UN bibliographic information system (UNBIS) and the UN journal (pdf) along with other catalogs.
This website covers all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993. Older UN documents are, however, added to the system on a daily basis. ODS also provides access to the resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards. The system does not contain press releases, UN sales publications, the United Nations Treaty Series or information brochures issued by the Department of Public Information.
UN Selection of Landmark General Assembly Decisions
UN Documents on Member States and Their Activities
UN Oral History Collection
The United Nations Oral History Collection of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library consists of a series of interviews with eminent persons and serving and former staff members of United Nations recorded over many years. The interviews cover a wide range of major world events and issues.
UN Yearbooks
This site contains the complete collection of UN Yearbooks since 1946. This is the main reference work on the UN and provides vital information on the UN's major resolutions and activities. The yearbooks are fully indexed.
Listen to programs on UN issues from flu vaccines to programs starring Audrey Hepburn and Kirk Douglas.
This library has an extensive online collection of photographs.
Yale's Avalon Library UN Documents
This is a good collection of important UN founding documents and resolutions, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s.
Indiana University League of Nations Archive
This collection includes speeches by Wilson and newspaper articles of the time. It mainly has sources on the United States and the League of Nations.
League of Nations Photo Archive
In addition to the League of Nations Photo Collection, there is a digital copy of The Illustrated Album of the League of Nations, which includes a very concise overview of the League plus other photos and diagrams. The League of Nations: A Pictorial Survey also includes numerous photos.
This League of Nations search engine allows researchers to explore the people, places, and organizations associated with the League of Nations. It also includes data visualization.
United Nations War Crimes Commission Project
This project has released selected documents from UN archives and various other materials related to the UN War Crimes Commission.
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE)
The ESCAP Intellectual History Project provides policy practitioners and academics access to analysis and advice contained in past editions of the annual ESCAP flagship publication Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific (Survey) starting with the first edition published in 1948 by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) as ESCAP was known until 1973. The digitized ECAFE/ESCAP Survey is accessible online at http://www.unescap.org/publications/survey
Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), an international public-private consortium coordinated by the UNEP, Yale University, and leading scientific publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world's largest collections of environmental science research.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
A complete searchable. multilingual, on-line catalogue of documents and publications produced by FAO since 1945, books added to the library collections since 1976, and serials held in the FAO library . Full text links are provided for all documents which are available in electronic format.
FAO Corporate Document Repository
The FAO Corporate Document Repository houses FAO documents and publications, as well as selected non-FAO publications, in electronic format.
FAO Databases and Information Systems
This links to over 50 FAO databases with statistics and information on agriculture, plants and animals. There are country profiles too.
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)GATT was a multilateral agreement on international trade. It lasted until the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995. All official GATT documents were made public in 2006 and many documents have now been scanned by the WTO and Stanford University.
International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
The ITU provides access to searchable PDF versions of key documents on its history and activities. The collections available on the Portal include the complete sets of documents from all ITU conferences and assemblies, all versions of the telecommunication and radiocommunication regulations, the annual reports of ITU (1869-2001), and historical telecommunication statistics as well as a variety of other historic reports and publications. See the list here.
Users can also access online the ITU’s journals from 1869 to 2015 here. Since 1869, ITU’s journal has been a key tool for sharing information about ITU activities, events, and initiatives, as well as about global developments in information and communications technologies (ICTs). The complete collection is searchable, and readers can browse, read online, and download PDF copies of all issues. There is an overview video of the collection here.
UN Audiovisual Library of International Law
The Audiovisual Library consists of three pillars: (1) the Historic Archives containing documents and audiovisual materials relating to the negotiation and adoption of significant legal instruments under the auspices of the United Nations and related agencies since 1945; (2) the Lecture Series featuring a permanent collection of lectures on virtually every subject of international law given by leading international law scholars and practitioners from different countries and legal systems; and (3) the Research Library providing an on-line international law library with links to treaties, jurisprudence, publications and documents, scholarly writings and research guides.This is a UNESCO database, with new documents constantly available online.
This links to UNESCO databases on education, natural sciences, culture, social and human sciences, communication and information. It also links to UNESCO public information, field offices and institutes.
This database holds around 80,000 films and photos related to UNESCO online.
This is a list of UN peacekeeping operations organized geographically. It is maintained by the Peace and Security Section of DPI in cooperation with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. It does, however, link to UN resolutions and documents on each mission.
This links to selected special reports on UN peacekeeping operations from 1999 to the present.
The World Bank has embarked upon an ambitious digitization project. Many documents are free and downloadable, including operational documents, research papers, and most Bank publications.
This includes descriptions and photos of several exhibits such as the Bretton Woods 60th Anniversary Exhibition World Bank Oral Histories This site holds online transcripts/summaries of interviews with more than 140 staff.
Projects & Operations Database
This provides a database of WB projects since 1947 with links to relevant documents.
This collection contains over 12,000 images of development.
The Web Archives program was launched in March 2007 to
preserve historical and research value of World Bank websites that had been
discontinued or significantly updated. The Web Archives collection dates
back to 1998 and includes:
+ sites
that have been replaced due to design, technological or other changes,
+ sites
that are no longer being updated, and
+ snapshots
of selected live sites.
This site provides transcripts of the Bretton Woods agreement, the constitution of many specialized UN agencies (such as UNESCO and the WHO), many important conventions and treaties of the 19th and 20th centuries (such as the Hague conventions, Kellogg-Briand Pact and Wilson's Fourteen Points).