Library Guides: United Nations: Tips

Short Cuts and Tricks

The UN publishes an immense amount of material, much of which is ephemeral. One trick is to rely on expert summaries that can be found in the following sources:

Use the United Nations Yearbook Collection to find key documents of an item in question.
Use the UN Library's research guide on United Nations Reports to find summary reports for the work of the UN and UN "flagship publications" such as Reports of the Secretary General.
Use online encyclopedias to get ideas and links to UN key documents, for example the Oxford Handbook of the United Nations and the Encyclopedia of The United Nations and International Agreements.
If you are doing country based research definitely use On the Record.
Use the UN Documenation Research Guide from the UN Library in New York.

Journals Articles about the UN

Another method is to find research written about the UN in political science, public policy, and international relations databases like these listed below.

Google Scholar. Functions as both a key word database for articles and books. It automatically connects to select licensed content held by the UC libraries.

JSTOR. Digital collection of high ranking scholarly journals and ebooks. JSTOR is an archive which means that current issues (generally the most recent 3-5 years) of the journals are not yet available.

PAIS International. Indexes books, journals, government documents, grey literature, research reports, and web sources related to public policy, politics, economics, and social issues worldwide.

PolicyFile. Index to public policy in the areas of economics, politics, the environment, and social issues, taken from reports from thinks tanks, Non-governmental organizations, international governmental organizations, and other institutions worldwide.

Proquest Social Sciences. Interdisciplinary metasearch in the social sciences: includes EconLit, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), PAIS, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts and more.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Searches books, journals, and dissertations in political science, international relations, law and politics, political economy, public administration, and public policy.

Magazines and Journals about the UN

Sample Books about the UN

The Parliament of Man
In The Parliament of Man, scholar Paul Kennedy gives a thorough and timely history of the United Nations that explains the institution’s roots and functions while also casting an objective eye on the UN’s effectiveness as a body and on its prospects for success in meeting the challenges that lie ahead.
Act of Creation
A story of how Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and American President, Harry Truman, picked up the pieces of the faltering campaign initiated by Franklin Roosevelt to create a "United Nations." Using secret agents, financial resources, and their position of power, they overcame the intrigues of Stalin, the reservations of allies, the discontent of smaller states, and a skeptical press corps to found the United Nations.
All Necessary Measures
What prompts the United Nations Security Council to engage forcefully in some crises at high risk for genocide and ethnic cleansing but not others? In All Necessary Measures, Carrie Booth Walling identifies several systematic patterns in the stories that council members tell about conflicts and the policy solutions that result from them.
Secretary or General?
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is a unique figure in world politics. This book brings together the insights of senior UN staff, diplomats and scholars to examine the normative and political factors that shape this unique office with particular emphasis on how it has evolved in response to changing circumstances.

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United Nations: Tips

Finding Books and Articles about the United Nations

Short Cuts and Tricks

Journals Articles about the UN

Magazines and Journals about the UN

Sample Books about the UN