UN Collection

The Tampere University Library functioned as a UN deposit library during 1967 - 2004. 

The purpose of the UN deposit library system is to make documents and publications published by the organization available to all citizens of the member states. The Parliament Library and Åbo Akademi Library are the current Finnish deposit libraries.

The Tampere University Library still carries UN resources. The collection includes publications from 1980-2004 and official documents from 1946-1992 published by various official UN bodies - General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council. Official documents include the most important UN deeds in their final form. UN documents since 1993 are available through the United Nation Official Document System (ODS).

The publication collection contains various year books, reports, surveys, statistical and conference publications.  These are listed in the Tamcat-database, and they are classified according to the UN classification system. Publications after 1989 are located in the UN collection on the second floor of the Main Library; statistical resources are mainly housed in the Reference collection among international statistics on the third floor (P Ref 318). Older publications are in closed storage.

The UN official documents can be read in-house, other publications may be borrowed. Resources are also available through the interlibrary loan.

UN Information Guide

The UN's Dag Hammarskjöld library has prepared a research guide for UN documentation. 

The efficient use of UN information resources presumes knowledge of the UN's organization and its functions.  Basic information can be found, for example, in the book "Basic Facts about United Nations".  Newest edition is from 2000. "Basic facts about United Nations" is now titled "United Nations Today", which was printed in 2008.

• Basic Facts about the United Nations

      Location: P UN I 00.21

UN yearbooks are excellent resources on UN activities during a certain year.  They include summaries and references to source documents. The Reference collection includes yearbooks since 1946.

• Yearbook of the United Nations [year]

      Location: P Ref 327 Yearbook 

You can also find the yearbook in electronic form.

The most important references to official documents can be found either in the UN's own databases: UNBISnet, UN-I-QUE or in the following indexes: Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly, Index to Proceedings of the Security Council, Index to Proceedings of the Economic and Social Council, lndex to Proceedings of the Trusteeship Council.

• Index to Proceedings of the ...

      Location: P UN Bibl

Please see also a list of UN related databases and related links. The list and links are in Finnish.

UN information specialist: Esa Hakala, tel. 050 407 9124, e-mail:firstname.juhani.lastname@uta.fi