UN HISTORY AROUND THE WORLD

A significant issue to emerge from the December 2002 meeting concerned the need to look at links between the holdings of the UN’s archives, and national archives and private libraries around the world. It was felt that many kinds of international history, and even national histories, could benefit from the use of UN sources. At the same time, the history of the United Nations and its agencies would benefit from the use of historical sources to be found elsewhere.

Our project aims to catalogue the variety of sources which exist in various countries pertaining to the history of the UN, and the UN’s role in international history.

  • Private papers are not usually kept by the UN archives. In fact, the personal diaries, letters, etc., of many former UN officials have been deposited in private archives or university libraries around the world. We aim to identify as many of these collections as possible.
  • It has been noted that a major gap in many of the UN’s archives relates to the lack of material from regional offices of the various agencies. Few of them keep their own archives. However, university and other libraries around the world are a good source of ‘grey literature’, unpublished documents and publicity from these regional offices.
  • We hope to list sources that are to be found in national archives around the world relating to government perspectives on the work of the UN in their countries (or on their countries’ contributions to the UN’s work). Such records include the files from permanent missions to the UN, in New York or Geneva, which eventually end up in national archives.
  • Finally, oral history forms a crucial part of the enterprise of writing the history of the UN. We hope to come up with general guidelines on locating former UN personnel around the world.

This ongoing cataloguing project, together with our research register, aims to fill some of these informational gaps. We would welcome contributions from researchers, librarians and archivists around the world – we need your help to build up a worldwide database of sources on UN history. Please see our Guidelines for Replies.

Guidelines for replies

For Archivists and Librarians:

  1. Practical information
  2. Address
  3. Opening hours
  4. Working languages
  1. Brief description of the archives
  2. Description of the archival series relating to the United Nations/other international organizations
  3. Archives holdings
  4. Archive groups/series
  5. General finding aids

4.Research Strategies. Do you have any pointers for researchers hoping to use UN-related sources in your archive?

  1. Access rules

For researchers:

  1. Information about your project [please fill in our research register]

What aspects of UN or international history are you working on? What kinds of sources have you used? Which archives, in particular, have you used, and what UN-related material have you found there?

  1. Experiences of using particular collections.

Please relate something of your own experiences in using these archives. This could either include comments of a practical nature, regarding access, organization and ease of use, or it could be a description of particularly interesting source materials, and the ways in which they have been used.