 Hello, and welcome to the NCLA Government Resources Sections Help I'm an Accidental Government Information Librarian webinar series. Today's webinar is called Navigating the Labyrinth of UN Documentation, an overview for people new to the world of UN documents. The presenters are Susan Gord, who is the Legal Librarian and Training Coordinator at the Doug Hummerschgold Library, and Ramona Kors currently serves as the Coordinator of the Outreach and Professional Development Unit of the Doug Hummerschgold Library of the United Nations. Thank you very much. Hi, everybody. This is Ramona Kors. I am currently serving as the Outreach Coordinator at the Doug Hummerschgold Library together with my and together with my colleague Amandu da Silva. One of my main responsibilities is to provide support to UN Depository Libraries, and that's what I'm going to talk about briefly now. So, if you can go to the next slide, please. The UN Depository Library program was born in 1947 with the aim to make UN information accessible to researchers and citizens around the world and to facilitate research about the UN and global issues. The American Library Association strongly advocated for such a program and was instrumental in getting it launched. 29 of the most prestigious libraries in Canada and the United States became UN Depository Libraries in 1947. The program is coordinated by the Doug Hummerschgold Library at UN Headquarters in New York. National libraries, parliamentary libraries, as well as large university and research libraries comprise the vast majority of the members in the network. And Depository Libraries commit to assign qualified staff to carry out three major functions to maintain their depository collections in good order, to provide access to UN documents and publications to researchers and citizens free of charge, and to offer research support. Next slide. Currently, we have 351 UN Depository Libraries around the world in 135 countries and the state of Palestine. This means that about one-third of the 193 UN Member States do not have a Depository Library right now. This chart shows the regional distribution of UN Depository Libraries around the world, the highest number of Depository Libraries is found in Asia, closely followed by the Americas and Europe next. Fewer Depository Libraries are located in Africa and the Middle East. Next slide. This chart shows the distribution of a total of 50 Depository Libraries in Canada and the United States by type of library. 45 of them are part of university libraries, four are located in larger public libraries and one belongs to a parliamentary library, the Library of Congress in the US. About five years ago, the existence of the program came under threat, which prompted the UN Library to reflect on and determine the value of having a network of Depository Library. At the time, several key values were identified. First of all, the local expertise of Depository Librarians who understand a highly complex body of documentation and who can direct and advise researchers, policymakers, civil society groups, and the public on where to find UN information and data and how to use numerous print and online resources, research tools and databases. Secondly, the fact that UN-generated knowledge is multiplied when it reaches specialist researchers, recognizing that a large number of Depositories are located at major research universities and institutes. And thirdly, the assurance that many collections of UN materials in locations around the world help to preserve the UN's intellectual heritage. With regards to collections held by UN Depository Libraries, we need to look at what materials were disseminated to them over the past 73 years. Until the early 1970s, all UN documents and publications were disseminated to Depository Libraries free of charge and participating libraries could choose between a full deposit and a partial deposit. A full deposit included all materials in general distribution. A partial deposit included UN publications and the official records which comprise the most important documents such as resolutions, meeting records, and major reports. As the UN grew more complex and the network of Depository Libraries expanded, the scope of the deposit was adjusted in the 1970s to exclude several categories of publications, mainly those of the funds and programs such as UNICEF and the UN Development Program and those of the UN University and its research institutes. In 1974, an annual contribution was instituted to defray a portion of the cost to print and ship UN materials around the world. In 2005, when access to the official document system was opened up, many Depository Libraries opted to no longer receive UN documents in print. In 2013, UN headquarters in New York stopped disseminating UN publications in print to Depository Libraries. Consequently, the amount of materials received by them has shrunk considerably and some may no longer receive anything at all. Nevertheless, Depository Libraries hold significant collections of UN material and some of them may even hold collections that rival those at the two flagship UN libraries in New York and Geneva. And I would like to make two additional points here. Some Depository Libraries purchase UN publications in print or subscribe to the UNI Library, an online platform for UN publications in electronic format that was launched in February 2016. And another point I would like to make is that the policies governing the program do not require Depository Libraries to keep UN materials forever. Therefore, some Depository Libraries may have withdrawn materials from their UN collections in particular in light of the increasing number of documents that can be retrieved online from the ODS and the UN Digital Library. The UN Publications Board designates Depository Libraries and establishes the policy that governs the program. In light with the policy, the Doug Hummershirt Library in New York provides support to participating libraries. We handle requests to join the program and withdraw from it. We conduct periodic surveys and compile statistics. We maintain a database of library profiles and contacts. We also maintain a searchable online directory. We provide guidance and collection management in particular regarding withdrawals from Depository Collections. We liaise with colleagues outside the UN Library regarding claims, invoices and requests from libraries to have the scope of their deposits adjusted. We conduct briefings and onsite visits. We also provide current information via our website. We send email broadcasts and post announcements on listservs such as Intel Dock about updates to the program, about major changes to research tools and systems, about new research tools, about useful resources and promotional materials for major international observances such as International Women's Day and UN Day and about events such as our conference and Open Science last year. We also engage the community of Depository Libraries on our Facebook page and our Activities Map and we participate in the meetings of the Government Information and Official Publications section of IFLA and the International Documents Task Force of ALA Goddard. Again, I would like to make some additional points here. So those of you who are working or who are in charge of Depository Collections and are considering to do some reading, you can contact us. We have developed some guidelines with useful tips and we can send those to you to help you with your reading projects for in UN Depository Collections. And also the program remains in an uncertain situation at this time. That's why we're currently not recommending that new Depository Libraries be designated by the UN Publications Board. The UN Documentary Library maintains a website for the UN Depository Library program. It basically consists of two pages and provides some basic information, including the rather outdated policy documents governing the program, but we don't have anything updated yet, links to sets of frequently asked questions in our Ask Doug service, a link to a searchable online directory of Depository Libraries around the world, and a link to the Activities Map on Findery. The online directory can be searched by several criteria, for instance, the Depository Library Code, the name of the library, city and country. This is a screenshot of the directory listing for Canada that is displayed after selecting Canada in the drop-down menu for countries and clicking on the Apply button. The listing includes the name of the institution and the library, the address, basic contact information, the date the library was designated as a UN Depository and the scope of the deposit. Depository Libraries organize a variety of activities such as anniversary celebrations, events on UN Day, and for other international observances and training workshops for students and depository librarians. And we are using a tool called Findery to post brief notes, photos and videos of a variety of activities at UN Depositories. And you can either open the tool in the grid view or the map view. In the grid view, you will see a bunch of cards that you can click on to read more about the activity. And in the map view that is shown in the screenshot, you can open the location markers to see an activity. For instance, in this case, a visit by one of our colleagues to a Depository Library in Argentina, where she interviewed the librarian and you can watch the video of the interview when you open this note. This slide shows examples of the many and various activities that many Depository Libraries organize. And we really invite all UN Depository Libraries to reach out to us and let us know what you're doing. You can send us an email with like a little description of the event or activity and a photo. Also, there's a feedback form that you can fill out. And so let us know because we would love to put you and your activities on the map. So these are the URLs for the website of the UN UN Depository Library program, the online directory, our Facebook page, and our email address. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions you may have, especially those of you who are working at Depository Libraries. We're always really happy to hear from you and to know that we're working together in bringing UN documentation and UN information to the people. For those of you who would like to learn more about the UN Depository Library program, you can read the two excellent articles by Jim Church and documents to the people, as well as the paper presented by my colleague Sherry Aldis and me at the Ifla World Library and Information Congress in 2016. And thank you all very much for your interest in this presentation. Please feel free to contact the library anytime. We are all working from home at this point, but you can reach us. You can follow us on Twitter. And now I'm turning it over to Linda for more questions from the audience. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ramona. Yeah, we have a couple of questions. One person was asking about...Principin has a Depository Library. It is currently closed, as is most of us. Yes, and they're one of those who probably have more than we do. Yeah, I'm sure. They have...I mean, Princeton is amazing and some other libraries like Stanford, they really have huge, very comprehensive collections of UN material. Awesome. All right. Oh, so there was a mention of training opportunities for the UN Depository Librarians. Are there other opportunities and developments for that or for people who are interested in UN? Yeah, well, we have...you know, basically, this is a little bit...also, my...you know, I'm a little bit apprehensive about all these online trainings. We are supposed to do some online training webinars. The issue is that it's...I'm working on Depository Library issues part-time with my...I have one colleague who assists, so it's not always possible to develop these things. They take some time to develop. But, you know, this is...for me, this is the first webinar I've ever participated in as a presenter. So, I think it's easy enough to do. So, I think we'll do more of these kinds of webinars, like similar to the one that we did today. And I was also thinking of just having an FAQ sessions for Depository Librarians, you know, via Zoom or Teams. The UN uses...we're using Microsoft Teams. And I've...we've just learned that we can invite external participants to Teams meetings. So, I'll probably arrange for some just FAQ sessions where, you know, free fall questions that Depository Librarians may have. Can I jump in here? Just to let you know, we are looking at, obviously, for obvious reasons, sort of remote training opportunities. It is kind of difficult for us in terms of staffing and that sort of thing. But obviously, we now find ourselves in a situation where the in-person training that we normally do, we're not able to do. So, we're looking at options and we're sort of...we're on the path to developing something. Okay, great. Somebody asked about if there are audio video recordings of the speeches available. That would be, I guess, for Susan. There are. So, what is available is through the Audio Visual Library website or through Web TV. The thing about them is they're not going to necessarily have, like, the transcripts and they might be the full meetings. So, you have to figure out where within a meeting you're looking for those speeches. But, yeah, if you are looking for multimedia content, it's not us that has it. There is, in fact, a UN Multimedia Library that will have audio visual recordings and photos as well. Well, they have now all the meetings are recorded and they are live on Web TV and then the recordings can be viewed later. But as Susan said, sometimes these meetings run very long, like three hours. Normally, it's like a meeting last three hours. And then if you're looking for a particular statement which may be very short, it's not always super easy to find. But on Web TV, WebTV.UN.org, that's where all the, that's basically the UN's webcasting service and all the official meetings, the public meetings are on live and also recorded for later viewing. Okay, great. So, somebody was asking where libraries or institutions should send questions. Something similar to the AskGPO that we might use in the federal level in the US. Apparently, this person has a depository library and doesn't know what they're even receiving because it's the person who had the profile, I guess, retired. So, should they contact you, Ramona? Yes, that would be the best. I mean, the questions that are received through our AskDoc service, they are rooted to the correct people. So, if there's a question about depository libraries, it's rooted to the email, our email address that we have for the program. Again, this is D-H-U-N. So, it's D-H-L-D-L at UN.org. D-H-L-D-L at UN.org is the email address for the UN depository library program. All right. And there was somebody asking what the book was that Ban Ki-moon was looking at. There's a picture of them all. Yeah, they are looking at, I believe, it's all documents that are getting digitized. I don't remember specifically what it was, but it was after a very large digitization project. All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you so much, Susan Ramona, for persevering in this. I know our technical difficulties in the first one. Somebody was asking about the League of Nations documents. I know Princeton has those. Yeah. So, we have some in print in our collection here in New York, but it's really Geneva that is the holder of the League of Nations material. There's an archives there. There's a special collections there. A number of them have been digitized, and they're available on a database I didn't talk about, which is search.un.org. So, you can find some League of Nations documents there. You can always contact us. And if we're not able to do it, then Geneva in, sorry, the UN library in Geneva is really the expert on those League of Nations questions. And also having, I think they were able to obtain funding for a large-scale digitization of their League of Nations collection. So, we can look forward to that. I don't know where exactly they are with that process, but they are actually digitizing the League of Nations collection in Geneva. And Anne was saying she would love to, if anybody wanted to do something on the UN human rights system, yes, that would be awesome. Thank you very much. Yeah, lots of great stuff in the slides. Lots of great links. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Susan and Ramona again for doing this. Good luck, everybody. Stay safe. And we will see you, hopefully many of you, on April 20th, for our next webinar. And feel free to get in touch with our presenters if you have questions. Yeah. By all means, please do contact us through ASTEC. We are happy to help.