UN Materials
Types of UN Materials
Documents
Records of documents and minutes of conferences that are distributed to
the member countries of the UN are stocked. Documents of importance are
subsequently issued as official records or publications.
Official Records
Materials that are to be preserved permanently, such as minutes of the UN General Assembly that have been revised and republished, and the reports of subordinate agencies and committees. Official records also include the UN secretary general's reports and UN resolutions.
Publications
Books and serial publications intended for the general public published by UN organizations and specialized agencies. Publications include yearbooks, survey results, collections of treaties and statistics published in a variety of formats from serial publications to independent books.
Document Symbol
Each UN document is labeled with a document symbol to help improve accessibility. The document symbol indicates which UN organization issued it, the subordinate agency and the type of document (resolutions, minutes of conferences, etc) it is.
| A/ | General Assembly |
|---|---|
| S/ | Security Council |
| E/ | Economic and Social Council |
| ST/ | Secretariat |
| /PV. | Literal record of meetings |
|---|---|
| /SR. | Summarized record of meetings |
| /Res. | Resolution |
| /INF. | Information series |
Details of document symbol and the other documents can be found at United Nations Research Guides.
Sales Number
Many UN publications are labeled with a sales number. This number indicates the language in which the publication is written, the year of its publication, the topic (classification symbol), and number in the series.
ex) E.03.II.C.1⇒ A material published in English (E) in 2003 on the subject of world economy (II.C) and the first (1) in the series.
* Document Symbol and Sales No. are identifiable on UNBISnet which is an online catalogue of UN documents and publications indexed by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library.
Other Materials
Major Magazines
| Publications of the UN | UN Chronicle Africa Renewal United Nations Peace Operations: Year in Review, etc. |
|---|---|
| Publications of Specialized Agencies | IMO NEWS Unasulya (FAO) |
| Japanese Materials | Kokuren (United Nations) Journal unicef news (Japan Committee for UNICEF) Dateline UN (United Nations Information Centre) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Monthly Research Report Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of the World (Japan FAO Association) Current Situation of World Food Insecurity (JAICAF (Japan Association for International Collaboration of Agriculture and Forestry)), etc. |
We publish a quarterly newsletter (Japanese only).