United Nations and other international organizations

Abstract

These are interesting times in terms of acquisition of international documents by libraries. Many libraries find their budgets shrinking, their documents departments being merged with general reference departments, and prices being instituted for documents that formerly were available free on deposit, or at least at a very low cost. Recently many former UNESCO depository libraries were informed that they would now need to begin paying for those UNESCO documents. All this at a time when the world's problems are no less intense than they have ever been and the need for international cooperation as evidenced by work in international agencies is greater than ever. Also many important documents continue to be produced showing the present and future work these agencies are trying to accomplish.

One important theme covered by many documents continues to be agriculture, closely aligned with the themes of development and poverty eradication. A number of these focus particularly on the new technology that it is hoped will enable those concerned to address the problems in a new way. Development in another of its aspects related to trade and privatization also figures prominently in the themes, with emphasis on bringing the lesser developed countries more on par with the developed countries. Economic issues, peace and conflict resolution issues, women's equality issues, and health issues are addressed by authors from several agencies who strive to examine these areas in new ways that will help bring solutions to age-old problems.

The Index to International Statistics (Congressional Information Service) provides addresses of the international governmental organizations (IGO's) headquarters and United States distributors. The columnists wish to express appreciation to Paula Hinton (PH), Social Science Reference Librarian, Walter Royal Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, and to Susan White (SW), United Nations Librarian, Princeton University Libraries, One Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544, for their contributions. We also thank Kathleen Wrobel, Public Affairs Service, University Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90025-1575, for her administrative assistance.