 Alright, everyone, we'll go ahead and get started. My name is Linda Kellum. I am the chair of Godort, the government documents roundtable, and I am the senior data librarian at the Cornell Center for Social Sciences. And I'm joined today with some friends of ours from the politics policy and international relations section of ACRL, Aaron Ackerman, who cannot turn on her screen right now. But she's gonna, she'll say hi in the chat, I'm sure. And Kenya Flash, who is at Yale and she's, she's waving. So thank you everybody for coming and I'm really excited to have such a big group for our webinar today. This is the Help I'm an Accidental Government Information Library webinar series, or help for short, and the series is brought to you by the American Library Association's government documents roundtable, and the NCLA government resources section. In the future, Godort's going to be taking over the webinar series. So, but right now the organizations are working together to bring the series to bring you the series during this transition period. So thank you for coming. And welcome to chat with us throughout the presentation in the chat box. If you'd like to ask a question, please use the Q&A, just because that helps us keep we can keep track of open questions and questions that have been answered. If you have a question for me, if you need to ask a direct question, you should be able to choose my name from the chat list. And you can ask me a direct question. If you have technical issues, feel free to email me at LMK277 at Cornell.edu, which we'll put in the chat. And I'll try to guide you through some solutions, but in the worst case scenario, we are recording this webinar, and we'll have it up on the YouTube channel for help within the next week or two. So, and I'll put all of those links in the chat in a second. We have plans for some webinars coming up on May 27. We're going to do a webinar on researching, researching state legislatures. And then in June, we're going to be pivoting towards the conference, the ALA National Conference. We are going to have a presentation on COVID's impact on marginalized communities. And then we'll also, then that will be separate from conference and then we'll ask, sorry, that would be a session on COVID's impact on marginalized communities. And we're going to have another session on the evictions crisis. And those will be at ALA virtual. So if you are going to ALA this year, please, or virtually going to ALA, please join us for those sessions and we'll be sending out more information about those soon. I think you're going to take off a month. So you should go outside. Lethica is beautiful in July so I like to go out and swim a lot. And then in August we have an opening so if you are interested if this sparks an interest in doing a topic that you are very passionate about, please get in touch with me and we can see when we could schedule you but August is definitely a month that we would like to schedule a webinar. I'm happy to entertain topics or ideas. So just let me know. All right, I'm going to switch over to stop sharing and switch over to Kenya and then I'm going to introduce Catherine. So while we're switching. Today's webinar is navigating the World Trade Organization locating and opening doors. Catherine Rewinkle Eldarwish is the librarian for the Library of the World Trade Organization. She earned her master's in library and information sciences from San Jose State University, and her bachelor's degree in English with a minor in German from Lafayette College. Prior to working at the WTO Catherine also worked at the United Nations Library and Archives in Geneva, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the ILO or the International Labor Organization. Catherine is primarily responsible for technical systems and cataloging, but also provides support for research and reference. Thank you very much Catherine. Thank you very much for this opportunity I wanted to thank ACRL Pippers and Godarts. I love the title of this webinar series because it. It reassures me that we're all still learning and there are resources available for when you're when you're trying to find your feet. So as, as I was introduced my name is Catherine I am the librarian for the World Trade Organization in Geneva, where it is currently sunny, we didn't have snow today. But anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for the opportunity to present, because while sharing the WTO with you is useful for for for your learning and making the most of our resources. It's invaluable for me to understand what is going on outside of the alphabet soup of organizations with which I work in Geneva, and to better able better be able to support the work around the world. So can you if you can advance aside please. Thank you. So just to give you a bit of a bit of an idea of where we're going today. Now this is not a presentation about the history of the WTO. However, I find that it is useful to understand where we are now and what is at our disposable disposal by understanding where we came from. So instead of a context in terms of where we come from what the WTO is the secretariat's role within the WTO is, and to address a couple misconceptions about the WTO and the WTO secretariat. The book of the presentation is going to be dedicated to what I refer to as the information and data resources ecosystem to talk about the library, but also the databases resources and tools available at your disposal. Next slide please. So, as I said, where do we come from well it helps to understand where we are now by knowing where we came from to understand the resources that we produce in the areas of work. It helps to know the context in which the organization was born. Next slide please. The third organization or ITO, which is marked here as incomplete was the third of three organizations proposed in nineteen ninety nineteen forty four Bretton Woods conference. Next, the negotiations began, and we're strongest between 1947 and 1948 which culminated in the creation of the Havana Charter, which was the final act of the United Nations conference on trade and employment. However, the charter never came into force. However, simultaneous with some of the negotiation for the ITO eight countries were underway negotiating what was called the protocol of provisional application of the general agreement on tariffs and trade and this was done in early 1947. Next, these discussions culminated in the general agreement on tariffs and trade or what we refer to as gap 1947, which was signed at the Havana conference and was the main outcome of the Havana conference. However, get basically the this the signatory of the document created one of the only or the first multilateral and the only multilateral governing instrument for international trade. And throughout the 47 years of the organization. It was always only a provisional agreement and organization. Next slide please. Through several, several rounds of negotiations and after seven point five years of the Uruguay round negotiation between 123 countries. It finally culminated in something called the Marrakesh agreement in 1994. Next. And the Marrakesh agreement, not only updated gap 1947, creating that 1994, but it brought together a number of new agreements and fundamentally established the World Trade Organization. Next slide please. This infographic. The text of it is less important than understanding that this is kind this is an explanation of the structure of the World Trade Organization. In red and orange it says ministerial conference, and that's the governing body to which all member countries, all 164 member countries are party. All 164 member countries, 25 countries are still negotiating their accession, but it's also fundamentally and negotiating form for member governments. It is also a system of rules governing international commerce. And finally the WTO is a secretariat to support and facilitate these negotiations, and to facilitate the dispute settlement system. So on this infographic you can see there are green and the green indicates the committees. Thank you. The green indicates committees, which are part of the organization. The light blue indicates councils, including the general council, the trade trips council which is trade related intellectual property is another example of one of the councils. The light blue includes plurilateral groups, as well as other affiliated activities for the organization. Next slide. Now what is the WTO secretary. The role of the WTO secretariat now as I said under GATT, there was no secretariat officially created. There were people who are working to make negotiations possible. But the secretary and the organization were never finally officially created. The WTO secretariat's roles are to supply technical support to the councils committees and ministerial conferences to provide technical assistance and advice to governments seeking membership to analyze world trade. And finally to communicate and explain WTO's activities and by this it's the World Trade Organization so the work of the organization, the work of the members to the public and the media. It's a very complex level of activity that we do. Next slide please, which leads us to a fundamental thing to cover which is misconceptions about what the WTO is what the World Trade Organization is, and what the World Trade Organization secretariat. Now I've talked about what we are. There's some important misconceptions to address about what we are not the WTO is not a specialized agency of the United Nations system. So how, though we closely collaborate with the agent with the system and with the specialized agencies we are not part of the United Nations system. The WTO is also not a decision making body. The WTO members come to the WTO for the purpose of making decisions usually by consensus. So we provide the environment in which these decisions can be made and these negotiations can take place. I'll go back a moment. Thank you. And finally, WTO and the WTO secretariat are not a rule enforcing body. Just as the decisions are made by WTO members, the rules are enforced by WTO members. And a final thing that's not on this slide is to understand that while the WTO, both the organization and the secretariat seek to engage with stakeholders outside of member countries. The organization exists for the negotiation of member countries so observers exist. Other civil society members can serve as observers or can participate in certain things. But the organization is for the members right now. Now I am ready for the next slide please. Thank you. So we come to the bulk of the presentation which is the information ecosystem for the organization and one of the highlights of these for me and I can say that is the WTO library. So the World Trade Organization library at the WTO library has as its goal specialization of a collection on international trade and trade related topics, especially economic, statistical, legal and historical materials. These three photos show the library different stages during its history. The building was originally designed for the International Labor Office and that first black and white photo shows what it looked like in the 1940s. The first photo is the 1980s. And the right photo is today. So this is our reading room. So I hope someday everyone will have a chance to come visit. That's fine. You can say it's perfect, perfect. I'm ready for this slide. So, thank you very much to Kenya for for helping me with my slides. What resources does the WTO library offer. It includes more than 45,000 books and monographs in print and electronic format. And these include publications from other international organizations, think tanks, as well as publishing houses. And it includes GATT and WTO official publications. Our collection includes more than 3000 journals and serials in print and electronic format, more than 7000 newspapers and new sources again print and electronic This is another electronic resources. We provide training, and we include, among the resources, the staff who work in the library. Next week. You needed Catherine. Sorry, I clicked the wrong button. Make a part. So who could use the library. So the library is for the primary purpose of supporting WTO secretariat staff and member state delegations. Other patron groups we also serve include training participants. These are often members of governments or students who are coming from elsewhere to study or work within the WTO. We also support academic researchers in person and remotely. We support United Nations and United Nations agency staff. Again, in Geneva, as well as abroad. We support members of non governmental organizations, and we support partner libraries and institutions. A last group which is not listed on here that we do provide some services to are the general public, we are one of the few libraries in an international organization in Geneva that remains open to the public. We welcome visitors who would like to simply come and see the library and come and learn more about the secretary. Next slide please. The WTO library's website is our electronic home. It is the face that we show to the world on the internet. In the image here you can see the header that appears on our website. Under WTO library, we have our online catalogs. We have one catalog, but it has two interfaces as we are presently transitioning between interfaces. From our library website, we also offer a guide to resources and journals, which we call our journal and news subscriptions portal. We offer topical resource guides, and we offer the library blog. And the purpose of these is to highlight new resources received to share a list of new acquisitions and to advertise events that will be taking place that we think will be of use to our patron group. This all the content that appears on there is publicly accessible. There are a few events that we have hosted that have remained behind a login screen, but by and large what we have tried to put on there are things that are accessible to the wider world as well as the organization. So that people outside of the organization can see the areas of work of the organization. Next site. And now WTO databases, resources and tools. If you have previously tried to find materials on the WTO or by the WTO. It is possible that you have experienced a certain degree of frustration and trying to navigate the myriad of resources produced by the organization. There are now activities within the organization, as with elsewhere other organizations and other institutions I'm sure, trying to find a way to better facilitate access to what we produce information at our disposal, not only for us, but for the wider world. What I hope the bulk of this presentation is to give you an idea of a number of the WTO databases resources and tools available in our information ecosystem. To better enable you to find what you need. Next slide. To start with, there's the guide to documentation. The guide to documentation is useful for understanding basic information about how the secretariat or organizes its documentation and information about documents. The guide to GAT and WTO official documents, it explains, among others, the in the symbols used to describe the different documents, and the collections of documents. Next slide please. GAT official documents. Now, while many of you might find that the WTO official documents are the more pertinent. If you're having some information about the previous documentation can be useful, not least because the GAT official documents set the foundation for where WTO began. There was a decision made by the general council in 2006 to make public all GAT official documents. However, not all are yet available in the electronic format. So scanning continues. That includes also some GAT official publications. We're still working on the scanning project to make all of these available. However, it is possible to access all of these GAT documents. One thing to be aware of is that GAT documents were not always produced in all three languages in which the organization worked. Initially they were only prepared in English and other languages came later. So it is possible that if you are looking for a reference to a document in one of the other working languages of the organization, it may not be available because it was not created. Next slide please. And in parallel to GAT official documents, we have what's called documents online or DAWL. And DAWL is the home of the WTO official documents. There are more than 140,000 documents in the three languages of the organization, English, French, and Spanish. And in contrast to GAT, under the WTO documents were prepared in all three languages from the beginning of the organization. So from 1995 onwards, each document produced by the organization is available in all three languages. DAWL is updated daily as a function of how quickly new documents are added. And the documents that are included in DAWL are available for download in PDF and Word. DAWL is its own extant system and navigating it can be challenging. With that in mind, there are a number of resources to help people better maximize their searching capabilities on DAWL. This includes a link to the guide on documentation, which I mentioned earlier. But it also includes search tips and help. If you run into trouble, what I would recommend is if you run into trouble using any of these resources, please feel free to contact us or contact details for the library or at the end of the presentation. Please feel free to contact us so that we may help you reach contact with the best person who can help you make the most of these tools. It's even when we try to create the best possible interface. So there's a certain degree of learning the system, and if we can be of help with that, we would like to. Next, legal instruments. So the category of documents called legal instruments includes the WTO agreements, schedules, modifications, instruments of acceptance, memorandums of understanding, and more. It exists in electronic format at the link below on the WTO website. And there is a print version produced called the WTO status of legal instruments, which does not include the full document always but includes references to the legal instruments currently in place. The most recent is the one shown here, the 2019 edition. However, be advised that the content on the legal instruments site is updated currently as of March 2021. So the site is the more recent update. Basic instruments. Basic instruments and selected documents or what we call BISD is one of the exceptions in terms of accessibility from the resources that I refer to in this presentation, because these exist exclusively at present in print format. We do have a collection in the library, so in the case where somebody cannot obtain access through interlibrary loan, or through their own institution, the GATT basic instruments and the WTO basic instruments are part of our collection. The GATT BISD ran through 1995. And as I've indicated earlier in the presentation, it was originally produced only in English with other languages being added so French and then subsequently Spanish. This for sale certain places online I discovered as a 42 volume print series, or even more rare, a CD ROM, which may or may not work with your setup. The WTO BISD by contrast ran from 1995 to 2006, and it was restarted in 2017. But again, it's in print format for the moment. And at the bottom here, if you are reading the spines of those books, it's not the basic instruments. I was unable to obtain a really nice photo of that, but I wanted to show you what some of the librarians in the past at the WTO came up with as our idea. In the case of GATT and WTO official publications, when they've been rebound, the practice was put in place to use a different color for each language. So in this case, red spine indicates that it's the English version. Blue is in French and green is for Spanish. Next slide please. Dispute settlement. Dispute settlement reports and disputes are a point of major interest for the WTO. One of the easiest places from which to access all of the content available on the dispute settlement and dispute settlement systems is from the trade topic guide on the WTO website, which I will give instructions on how to access later in the presentation. It's also available from link shown at the bottom of the slide. It includes on this trade topic guide, a database for both finding and following disputes, setting up alerts to receive notifications when new documents are added or movement takes place on the dispute. Please note that reports of the GATT disputes are included in GATT official documents. This is certainly a publication of GATT dispute settlement reports, which came out in print and electronic format, but after 2006, even these disputes were made publicly available and so they are in the GATT official documents now. Next slide please. The WTO analytical index. The WTO analytical index goes gives an article by article guide to the interpretation and application of WTO agreements by WTO bodies. Within it includes also the reports of WTO appellate body, panels, arbitrators, as well as related decisions. It previously existed in print, very large volumes and electronic format on CD-ROM, but now it is exclusively electronic and it is regularly updated. We are currently on the fifth edition. The GATT analytical index also exists. And is available in print with some format forms. Sorry, with some parts of it available in electronic format from the WTO's library catalog, because we have scanned them and we have found them in order to make them accessible. Next slide please. Finally, the WTO's website. As I indicated the WTO's website includes a large amount of information on a large number of topics. It includes things like news, the events calendar, both for members, which is under password for members, which includes some of the meetings to which they participate, but also a section on about the WTO, photo gallery, and much more. The number of pages for this website is significant. And I would like to focus on three areas or three portions of the website, which I think may be most pertinent to understanding and finding what you need. And these are the trade topics, subject guides, the list of databases, and the data portal. Next slide please. So trade topics. We have subject thematic dossiers with news items, publications, databases, and more. On this page you can see a list of the topics. They include things like a COVID-19 portal page for the work of WTO on COVID. Disputes, other trade topics, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property, agriculture, areas under current and past negotiation are available here. If you're clicking on one of the links, it will take you to a page that provides a comprehensive list of the items such as news, recent publications, databases, and more. It is a very useful portal through which you can access a great deal of information. If you already know the topics that you're seeking. It includes newly launched webinar links. We've been doing more webinars and WTO as well as certain podcasts. It provides links to that content as well. Next slide. The WTO website list of databases. I didn't include a screenshot of this because it is exactly what it says on the box. It is a list of databases. Up to date, regularly updated and searchable of the WTO online systems. This includes the websites such as the WTO website and databases such as doll or the dispute settlement database. For each database or system, it includes information about the system's content, as well as the contact person or the contact email. It also includes details regarding accessibility. So in the case of doll, it indicates which documents you can expect to have access to, and which documents may be restricted. However, as other organizations are experiencing we are struggling with the best way to make these systems and databases interoperable. It is something we are working on. The WTO website poses a challenge for both transparency and also best functioning of the systems that we provide. So we hope that this list of databases will evolve to the point where a similar language is used across the board to facilitate access both by us to our own information, and also by those outside. Next slide, please. The last of the three that I wanted to talk about on the WTO website is the data portal. It is associated with statistical indicators relating to the WTO's issues and the topics on which we are working. They include time series covering merchandise trade as well as trade and services statistics, market access indicators, non-tariff information and more. There are data retrieval functionalities such as data select, displaying export. Please note that maps, as well as graphical representations of data such as infographics are held separately on the statistics trade topic page, which is under the trade topics page to which I referred previously. Next slide, please. Finally, one of the things that I wish to convey and perhaps what I hope will be the biggest takeaway is if you are faced with trying to find information or publication or materials. And despite best efforts have been thwarted, please contact the library. We are be more than happy to do our best to help you find what you need. And I've included phone, even though please bear in mind we are in Geneva Switzerland rather than the states. So our working hours may not be yours. I would recommend using the library at WTO.org email. All of this information is available from our website, so there's no need to memorize it already down right now. But please let us know if you have any questions. And again, if you have questions about this presentation in particular, please send them to library at WTO and make reference to the presentations that I know to what you are referring. Because this is the joint email for our team. So that all the experts in our team can respond to your queries. Next slide please. This concludes my presentation. Thank you very much again for this opportunity. Thank you very much to the attendees who have participated. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. We might want to keep the slides up in case Catherine needs to go back to any we do have a few questions. One in the chat. And feel free to be, you know, put some questions in the Q&A. So we can keep track of it but if you put them in chat that's fine too. So there's a question in the chat from Steve. Is the source of the trade data calm trade. I smile because it's a very good question. And unfortunately, as of the presentation today, I do not have the answer to that question. Because I tried the approach that could be taken from the outside of writing to the generic statistics email to find out the answer. And I have not received a response yet in talking to my colleagues my understanding is we pull statistics or receive statistics from a number of sources. Calm trade is one of them. We also look at balance of payment statistics from organizations such as IMF. We received national statistics. What I don't know is to what degree this is integrated into the data portal. I don't know for sure the answer to your question, unfortunately, I will hopefully have an answer soon so that I can respond to that question will fully. This is another one that's related to that. Can Catherine explain anything in the WTO merchandise trade statistics portal not in calm trade. No, I can't, but I will see what I can do. I will try to note down who made the query and to what it refers and I will see I will see what I can find for you. I believe that's James I will see. I will see what I can find out. That's James church so if you need his email. Thank you very much yes because my pen just died. Yeah, because I don't, I don't have the answer to that question but I would be curious to know. Okay, thank you very much. And then there's a couple questions about BISD. So and I was asked, is the overlap is there overlap between the legal instruments which print and the BISD. Yes, there is no overlap. Sometimes you'll find documents that appear in the BISD that do not appear in the legal instruments, especially relating to get because legal instruments is something that's for mostly for WTO. The BISD also had a different numbering system than the legal instruments but there is overlap because for example the 42 volumes incorporates some of the items that are in the legal instruments. So yes there is there is overlap, but the numbers should be higher. If they're not the same, they should have an indication of which one, which one is which. And then the next one is for the BISD, why did it get discontinued. Is there a source covering the years that are covered. I'm going to note that down to, um, I know that BISD was viewed originally as a way to communicate official documents to members. And so they were bound in small in small volumes and distributed in that way. So I think the purpose changed. I don't know why there was an interruption during WTO I'm not sure. I expect that it was because the legal instruments took precedence, and there was another way to manage these communications, but I will check and see what I can find out from my colleagues maybe my colleagues and archives might have might have some information about that break. And I'll take these chat these questions down to and email them to you and then we can email them out to everybody who registered. That would be great that way everyone can benefit from from having the answers because these are these are fabulous questions thank you very much. Any more questions. Give a pause. See if there are more questions. Well I just want to, well if you are writing questions I just want to say thank you very much. Catherine for for presenting and talking about this is very helpful definitely. I just want to thank you and just getting into those major documents are really helpful. So Nadine was asking a link to the PowerPoint slides. Do you want to provide those to me and I can. I can provide those to you as I can give you the PowerPoint, and I can also produce them as PDF because I know that sometimes people find it easier to access it in one format or the other. I can provide that absolutely. Yeah, and we're going to. Yeah, so I will, Nadine I'll, everyone else, I'll put the recording in YouTube and then usually have the slides as a Google document. So people can get a link to it through with the YouTube recording so that's how we usually do it. So Catherine will send it to me and then I'll link it inside the YouTube recording and send that out to everybody who registered. And I don't know if I need to send. I know Kenya has a copy of the slides obviously as well. To make sure that Pippers participants will have that as well I don't know how access, how accessible. Yeah. Okay, we can send it out. Oh yeah everybody can access it. But yeah, okay, everybody who registered know so that'll be present. Um, so any last questions before we say thank you to Catherine. Thank you everyone who asked questions. Yes, thank you for the questions I appreciate that. So we're getting a lot of thank yous. Well thank you everybody for coming thank you Catherine so much for joining us today. And arranging this is really great and thank you to Kenya for helping to arrange it. And I will I promise to have it up within the next couple of weeks I am taking a day off. So we'll try to do it as soon as possible. And, and Sam, Samantha has to do close captioning so. So it takes us a little bit of time sometimes, but we will give it up as soon as possible. And I'll let Catherine know about the questions that we're outstanding and send those out to the entire group everybody registered. Once we have the answers. Thank you everybody for coming and unless there's any last questions. There's one more question. This is why I ramble a lot before I leave. So I had a question on the current policies for restriction of documents are they still covered in the 1996 document should I email direct. So it depends which 1996 document where we're considering. The current policies for restriction is that there are rules about at which point document becomes an official document for example there are the documents that are only available to members. Aha, that one. Okay. Yes, I reckon I recognize that string. I can't tell you if it relates directly to that but I will look, and I can tell you more about the restriction. And that sort of information I should be able to share with share with everybody so you know a little bit more about what's restricted and what isn't by and large as a push for more more availability isn't secret. We will find out when I tried to download the document and ask whether I can share it. I get that I'll get that information to you. Thank you, and I can check that. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Catherine. It has been fantastic. Just learning about the WTO and the changes that's gone through. And again, I love your library for anyone who's still here. Catherine's background is the actual library. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. This is our, this is our main reading room. And it has its own, its own special history but I wanted to make sure to be able to give the presentation from here rather than just showing the backdrop because it's, it's a lovely space. And as I said, I hope that sometime in the future, everyone has the opportunity to be able to visit. Thank you. Thank you so much again and thank you to Pippers for helping working with us and doing this jointly. Pippers has a webinar coming up may soon. I'm going to be doing some this information may somebody catch this may 19th is their webinar so definitely and I put a link to that so definitely register for that because it looks really good overview of treaties. That looks really interesting. That's awesome. So, yeah, just definitely take check it out check out our good word stuff. We have a lot of things coming up and that is about it so I will be in touch with everybody you registered and let you know and I'll be in touch with Catherine with a question with the questions that were outstanding. Okay. Well thank you everyone have a great day. Hope it's not snowing where you are. Except I imagine it's snowing for me. Yeah.