Lo United Nations Depository Libraries System come “comunità aperta”
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/13676
La transizione all’accesso aperto sta cambiando il modo in cui le biblioteche depositarie delle Nazioni Unite stanno lavorando per coadiuvare le comunità locali (ricercatori e cittadini) nell’accedere ai documenti e alle pubblicazioni delle Nazioni Unite. Tale transizione, in corso dal 2015, sta gradualmente cambiando il sistema delle biblioteche depositarie in una rete della conoscenza. Già durante la crisi causata dall’epidemia di Covid-19 è stato possibile vedere i primi segni di quest’evoluzione in quello che può essere chiamata una “comunità aperta” de facto, riunita attorno a strumenti ad accesso aperto, come la Biblioteca digitale delle Nazioni Unite e alla condivisione di buone pratiche.
I bibliotecari presso le biblioteche depositarie, che hanno costruito le proprie competenze in anni di conservazione in debito ordine e catalogazione della loro collezione cartacea, sono adesso chiamati a migliorare le loro competenze per offrire agli utenti nuove modalità di accesso e di scoperta online. In questo articolo presentiamo alcuni progetti volti a rendere la collezione speciale locale su carta più “visibile” online e più accessibile in termini di formati e lingua.
In seguito a fino a settantacinque anni di esperienza accumulata, i bibliotecari delle biblioteche depositarie sono ora, non solo detentori di una eredità culturale, ma promotori di questa attraverso l’attività di patrocinio da loro effettuata all’interno e per conto del sistema delle biblioteche depositarie delle Nazioni Unite.
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Deborah Grbac
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10.6092/issn.2532-8816/13676
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The United Nations Depository Libraries System asn an “open community”: The ongoing evolution from a knowledge base to a knowledge network
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/article/view/13676/13799
   Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021
D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”
DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/13676


     The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an
                     “open community”
The ongoing evolution from a knowledge base to a knowledge network


                                           Deborah Grbac

                 Biblioteca d’ateneo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
                                   deborah.grbac@unicatt.it




       Abstract

Transition to open access is changing how United Nations Depository Libraries are working to
serve local communities (researchers and citizens) in accessing United Nations documents and
publications. This transition, in course since 2015, is gradually changing the System of
Depository Libraries into a knowledge network. Already during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was
possible to see the first signs of this evolution into what can be called a de facto ‘open
community’, gathered around open access instruments like the United Nations Digital Library
and the sharing of best practices. Librarians at Depository libraries, who built their own
knowledge in spending years in keeping in due order and cataloguing their collection on paper,
are now called to improve their skills, to give users new ways to access to documents and
publications. The challenge is to keep the paper collection and giving it greater accessibility and
discoverability online. In this article we present some projects aiming at making local special
collection on paper more “visible” online and more accessible in terms of formats and languages.
Following up to seventy-years of accumulated experience Depository Librarians are now not only
owners of a cultural heritage, but promoters of it by the advocacy work they are doing inside and
on account of the United Nations System of Depository Libraries.
La transizione all’accesso aperto sta cambiando il modo in cui le biblioteche depositarie delle
Nazioni Unite operano per coadiuvare le comunità locali (ricercatori e cittadini) nell’accedere ai
documenti e alle pubblicazioni delle Nazioni Unite. Tale transizione, in corso dal 2015, sta
gradualmente cambiando il sistema delle biblioteche depositarie in una rete della conoscenza.
Già durante la crisi causata dall’epidemia di Covid-19 è stato possibile vedere i primi segni di
quest’evoluzione in quello che può essere chiamata una “comunità aperta” de facto, riunita
attorno a strumenti ad accesso aperto, come la Biblioteca digitale delle Nazioni Unite e alla
condivisione di buone pratiche. I bibliotecari presso le biblioteche depositarie, che hanno
costruito le proprie competenze in anni di conservazione in debito ordine e di catalogazione della
loro collezione cartacea, sono adesso chiamati a migliorare le loro competenze per offrire agli
utenti nuove modalità di accesso e di scoperta online. In questo articolo presentiamo alcuni
progetti volti a rendere la collezione speciale locale su carta più “visibile” online e più accessibile

                                                  199
    Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

in termini di formati e lingua. Di seguito a fino a settantacinque anni di esperienza accumulata,
i bibliotecari delle biblioteche depositarie sono ora, non solo detentori di una eredità culturale,
ma promotori di questa attraverso l’attività di patrocinio da loro effettuata all’interno e per conto
del sistema delle biblioteche depositarie delle Nazioni Unite.



        1. The System of United Nations depository libraries

The United Nations Depository Libraries System was founded in 1946 and formally inaugurated
in 1947 by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the United Nations headquarters in New York,
nowadays the Library belongs to the Department of Global Communications and coordinates
the Depository Programme by means of the Outreach Division. 1
In the past, as nowadays, the System’s purpose has been to distribute United Nations documents
and publications around the world to local Depository Libraries, which agreed to participate in
the Program. So far there are 351 libraries in 135 countries and one territory (Palestine).
Depository Libraries’ duties are to receive, catalogue and keep in good order official documents
(called “Official records”) and periodicals both copyrighted by authors working for the United
Nations System (called “Sales publications”), and open access publications (or United Nations’
copyrighted publications). Periodicals contain the Organization’s scholarly communication
products, to which Depository Libraries grant public access for consultation, by means of their
daily activities.
Today, a further duty adds to previous ones, as «depository librarians are encouraged to provide
access to online and research tools for UN material and information, and to provide support to
researchers in the use of those tools and resources» ([5]).
Since 2015, considering comments gathered after the submission of a questionnaire to
Depository Libraries, the System is evolving gradually, moving from the paper collection to
online one, always keeping the paper one in due order and at disposal.
The library at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano has been part to the System
since 1969. The local special collection of United Nations documents and publications was
founded by an International Law professor, Professor Giuseppe Biscottini, who asked the library
to take part into the System, to collect United Nations documents and publications and put
them at the disposal to students and researchers. At the beginning of the Seventies, a reference
room was dedicated to the consultation of the collection and was located at the Political Science
Department. 2




1   The United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library website.
2   The reference room was created after an agreement reached among three professors belonging to the
    Schools of Political Science and Law: Professor Giuseppe Biscottini, Professor Gianfranco Miglio and
    Professor Luigi Mengoni. For an history of the local special collection see [10].
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              D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

        1.1 Main reforms and developments
Already in the early Seventies, the Depository Program was submitted to a first reform aiming at
reducing the number of documents sent to Depository Libraries. Some publications of United
Nations funds and programs and in particular the United Nations University periodical were
removed from the shipping list.
In 1974 because of the greater number of Depository Libraries participating to the System, it
was further transformed from a collaborative one, based on publications’ exchanges, into a
contributively one. Except for one library per country, normally the national central library, all
other libraries in the same country and belonging to the System, had to pay an annual
contribution to participate in printing and shipping expenses.
Gradually, since 1992, documents were put at disposal also online, the process started with the
first database hosting official documents: the United Nations Official Documents System
(ODS).
After being a prototype for some years, the database became effective in 2005. At the beginning
it contained only digital-born documents, or documents published after 1993, by means of some
digitization projects, in 2016 the database was updated with some digitized documents published
before 1993.
Two more databases were launched in 2007 and 2008, the United Nations Treaty Series database
and the United Nations Data web-based data service. The “Treaty Series”, as the “Statistical
Yearbook”, were two of the Sales periodicals (with a Sale number, so at costs) distributed on
paper inside the Depository Libraries System till 2013.
In 2013, the United Nations Publications Board announced that due to Hurricane Sandy’s
damages and budget constraints, no more print documents or publications would be published
on paper and be sent from the New York headquarters and that a transition to a “primary”
electronic deposit would soon be implemented. 3
Following this decision, an official “consultation paper” was issued in April 2014 on the new
strategic direction for United Nations Depository Libraries (see [4]). From 2015 on, a gradual
evolution to digital collections was pursued using several digitization projects covering specific
contents.
In June 2016 the Publications Board declared that public access to information would be
improved by the two new digital repositories: the United Nations Digital Library and the United
Nations-iLibrary.




3   The Hurricane Sandy hit New York City between the end of October and beginning November
    2012 destroying the United Nations printing facility at New York headquarters. For an historical
    reconstruction of Depository Libraries Programs see [1], [2] and [3].
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    Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

It was the UN-iLibrary who came first in February 2016. Depository Libraries were invited to
subscribe to the new Institutional Repository online at cost (with a discount), in addition to the
already existing contribution, which wasn’t dismissed but only reduced. 4
This communication created a vivid debate inside the Depository Libraries community, as when
the news was first announced, it suggested, in some ways, the idea that the UN-iLibrary would
be “the” chosen instrument for the electronic transition of the System and this had to be done
by paying a further subscription to sales publications, when, at the time publications were sent
on paper, their subscription was comprised into the annual contribution to the program.
Finally, in May 2017, the second repository was launched, the United Nations Digital Library,
where both official documents and open access publications were put at disposal on electronic
version for free. Since, the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library has continuously
promoted the improvement of digital tools and services around what proved to be more than a
repository but a full Catalogue. The United Nations Digital Library substituted the previous
United Nations online Catalogue UNBISnet.
As a direct consequence nowadays, Depository Libraries are also asked

        to direct and advice researchers, policymakers, civil society groups, and the public on where
        to find UN information and data, and how to use numerous print and online resources,
        research tools, and databases. ([6])

During Covid-time the Program developed in a de facto ‘Open Community’, aiming to use more
online instruments, transforming the System from paper to digital collections and related online
services, this because at that time ongoing pandemic lockdowns were spread around the world.
All this without dismissing the historical paper collection, as still useful for enabling the study of
materials non yet digitized (see [6]).
The cooperation took place under the leading role of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library which
provided information on United Nations celebrations days, on Sustainable Development Goals,
webinars for continuing education and training, research guides on specific topics and updates
on digitisation projects. The community participants cooperated showcasing in a dedicated



4   For copyrighted publications (or “Sales publications”) online access is offered by the UN-iLibrary,
    created in partnership with the OECD. Usually, sales publications are published in the dedicated
    webpages on institutions’ websites, the repository offers, as one could read on the website in 2016,
    the service of being «the first comprehensive, global search, discovery and dissemination platform for
    digital publications and journals published by the UN Secretariat, its funds, and its programs. It also
    offers additional services such as a new citation tool, D.O.I., multilingual content, and the capability
    to make content searchable through chapter level indexing». The time-series coverage is the big limit
    of the repository, as many historical volumes are not covered, unless having been made the object of a
    digitization project. Also, current issues take time to be published as they must be processed first
    (indexing). The website was updated in December 2020 giving more visualization tools and
    incorporating a new feature: an interface in all six official United Nations languages and a search
    feature by Sustainable Development Goals. Cf. Un-iLibrary website.
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               D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

depository libraries website their activities for an active best practice sharing and mutual
suggestions and influence. 5
The United Nations Depository Library system as global framework helped also to implement
further bilateral cooperation projects, as for instance the exchange of documents to complete
each other collections. This happened to our Library that received from UNOG Library at
Geneva a League of Nations periodicals collection published in Italian language useful not only
to complete the local collection but offering also to a local Archive with which a cooperation was
in course. 6

        1.2 Ongoing challenges
Since the introduction of the United Nations Digital Library a double change in accessibility
must be registered inside the System: not only from paper to online, but also from subscription-
based to open access to publications.
However, introducing at first a repository for sales publications at cost as a tool to move online
resulted misleading, moreover that Depository Libraries in Europe were still receiving some
publications (both official records or documents and periodicals) on paper, sent by the
Distribution Division at UNOG (United Nations Office in Geneva)..7 Electronic versions of
sales publications were, and are also nowadays, at disposal for free online at the official websites
of the institutions publishing them (mainly current issues, but also some archives, for instance
for publications hosted in the ECLAC repository). 8
Therefore, instead of subscribing the UN-iLibrary repository, our local library with a project
lasting from 2015 to 2016, updated local bibliographic records of United Nations periodicals
and connected the collection on paper to the electronic version at disposal in open access on the
publication pages of each institution. A visualization of metadata was produced to enable
navigation from paper to online by a “virtual shelf” reproducing the users’ experience in
consulting the shelves online outside the dedicated reference room containing the paper
collection (called “Sala ONU”), at the only condition to be in campus. 9




5   The Depository Libraries Activities website at that time was hosted on Findery, the free social media
    was used as a pilot project for its visual map format. Previously published contents are now at disposal
    in the Depository Libraries monthly newsletter.
6   See [10] for a description of the above-mentioned cooperation project.
7   Up to the Covid crisis, we were still receiving some of those documents on paper, the shipping
    stopped with the crisis.
8   The ECLAC is the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which created an
    open access repository for periodicals, the repository official website.
9   See the webpage of this electronic resource in OPAC called “Sala ONU”. Some information, as for
    instance visualizations and table, are retrievable only in campus, others, or periodicals titles and web
    address are at disposal of anybody.
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    Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

The virtual representation of the collection, as put on the shelves, enables users to reconstruct
journal evolution over time, consenting the experience of perusing issues chronologically on the
shelves and enabling to directly go to the bibliographic record to make a consultation request.
The linkage between the two versions (paper and online) was done using the UNOG instrument
“Global search”. As a Depository Library settled in Europe, our Library received a greater part
of documents and publications from Geneva and Geneva Library’s Catalogue was adopted as the
main reference for this work. Moreover, accessing the open access version of these publications
was possible because publications produced in Geneva were copyrighted by Genevan
institutions.
For publications issued in New York and previously received on paper, we had to wait for the
development of the second repository: the United Nations Digital Library. For Sales publications
retrievable only at the Un-iLibrary, we asked to users to consider the “e-read” version at disposal
for free on this repository, or eventually ask for the paper copy retrievable from deposits.
During the Covid 19 crisis, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library has continuously promoted the
improvement of digital tools and services. Offering them more online (i.e training webinars,
virtual events, electronic communications, etc.), but also making the United Nations Digital
Library central to a bunch of new services as: informational and promotional materials, research
guides, ad hoc consulting on how to use the Digital Library and dedicated webinars.
All these materials were shared using a series of email alerts containing information as: United
Nations days celebrations, updates of digitisation projects, availability of new publications. All
contents reusable against simple citation. Nowadays a monthly communication has substituted
the emails exchange.
During the lockdown time, the United Nations Digital Library resulted precious both in
enabling access to documents and publications, but also in terms of availability to users
worldwide, increasing by this way open access offer. Moreover, in the case of publications, if
periodicals are at disposal in open access, a link called “UNPAY wall” leads directly from the
bibliographic record to the open-access version at disposal online. 10
As a result, in 2021, the United Nations Digital Library was awarded the “Jus Gentium Research
Award”, by the American Society of International Law as a

       «one-stop shopping» for primary documents crucial to most areas of international law. 11




10 For further information on the Unpaywall visit the United Nations Digital Library News website.
11 The news on the prize, visit the United Nations Digital Library News website.

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              D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

        2. Making cultural and intellectual heritage accessible and
        transmissible

GLAM are cultural heritage institutions dealing with cultural heritage transmission, they are, as
stated in the acronym, Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums. In the last decades, they were
engaged in using digital means and create

        digital surrogates of their artefacts or holdings, ([12]: 14)

to make them more easily available to researchers and the public.
In the meantime, also research libraries have made their special collections on paper more
discoverable using services linked to those collections, a recent analysis states that for instance
there is

        an increasing interest in collecting ephemeral and grey literature,

so

        that many additions to library collections look much more like special collections. ([17]:
        10)

Those special collections contribute to knowledge creation using their potential in terms of data
(metadata) and or primary sources to be used eventually, also for teaching purposes.
Moreover, working on paper collection, as to make them more discoverable online through
completing metadata cataloguing or linking the paper version to the free online version, it has
the undoubted advantage of valorising periodicals already subscribed in the past or official
documents received under a cooperation project, adding the information of their availability also
online via: open access resources or because documents falling under the public domain, avoiding
by this means the costs of subscribing commercial repositories (as the Un-iLibrary, but there are
also others as Hein online), nor paying for duty management rights, when choosing as in this
case to valorise official documents at disposal under the public domain.
This is what our Library did first with the project above mentioned retrieving the link to the
online open access version of the local special collection of ephemera, or United Nations
periodicals and with the following project held in 2018 aimed at cataloguing a special collection
of United Nations official records received from Geneva, parliamentary documents (covering
different periods, but mainly 1982-1994), with the main purpose of using this special collection
for teaching purposes, to show to students how documents were printed and disseminated in the
past during trainings on United Nations resources. 12 This project reflects one of the purposes of
the depository libraries, namely that «UN depository libraries maintain historical collections of



12 For more details on the project see [10].

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    Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

UN materials and make these materials available to all users. This resolution makes easier the
study of materials that are not yet digital» ([6]).
In the above-mentioned document, we also read that

       Multiple collections of UN materials in locations around the world also help to preserve
       the UN’s intellectual heritage and historical record of its work. ([6])

Since 2019 the receiving of the printed version of those parliamentary documents from Geneva
was discontinued by our library in agreement with the Printing Department at UNOG and in
accordance with the Statue weeding rules. Since 2021, the Printing Department in Geneva
discontinued the shipping of open access periodicals issued by institutions and Commissions
actives in Geneva.

       2.1 A huge and heterogenous cultural heritage
Up to seventy-five years of cultural heritage (official documents and periodicals’ paper collection)
is a huge responsibility for a library as the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, or any other of the
depository libraries, to this nowadays it adds the digital-born or digitized heritage as well, as all
the contents of the United Nations Digital Library.
The United Nations Digital Library collects a catalogue of bibliographic records related to
Official documents. It is also an access point to open access periodicals (texts included), also
using the Un-paywall. It offers data collections: a database of voting records collected during
General Assembly sessions, and a collection of texts of speeches held during General Assembly
sessions, and finally maps enclosed to International Agreements between the United Nations
States.
In the case of the UNOG, the United Nations Office in Geneva, the library heritage counts in
terms of library collections for more than 100 years, as the library was created at the time of the
League of Nations. Local cultural heritage also covers the Archives of the League of Nations,
International Peace Movements’ Archives and private papers, a Catalogue of Archival Funds and
collections and the ongoing project called LONTAD, the “Total Digital Access to the League of
Nations Archives Project” aiming at ensuring free online access and digital and physical
preservation of League of Nations documents from 1920 to 1946. 13
Since 1947, in the UNOG premises there is a museum, nowadays called the United Nations
Museum Geneva and numerous art collections spread around different buildings, which now
have been collected in their Catalogue: the “Artworks Collection” Catalogue. 14
The access to this complexity in terms of typology has been resolved in Geneva by the “New
Global search”, or the



13 The LONTAD project webpage.
14 As the museum has been renamed in 2015, it hosts League of Nations’ documents and artefacts
   regularly showcased during exhibitions. See the United Nations Museum Geneva website.
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              D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

        single point of access to the UN Library at Geneva’s print and electronic collections,

whose search results are produced by a multi-layer (Primo) browsing in different sources and
creating a “global” index accessing to the “federated research”, or research on different catalogues
as the artworks Catalogue above-mentioned. 15 This search approach is called an “exploratory
one”.
To this instrument it has been added, as classical index search is still possible, or search by the
“exact match” approach, a new filter to find out and select resources curated by librarians called
“Featured Topics”. As sometimes search can be difficult without having previous information,
those “curated lists” enable to search for resources by keywords suggesting users the appropriate
one leading to some results.
The idea behind the GLAM approach is to put things in context using digitalization, but also by
giving more contextual information, for instance, research guides or search suggestions as lists of
results organized by subjects, or by aggregating specific keywords as above mentioned. The more
metadata are put at disposal to describe special collections, the easier becomes making
information discoverable and available, moreover in the

        new digital workflows and environments. 16


This is the reason why in commercial databases it is recently spreading the practice to offer to
users ways to browse results using “text analysis” instruments tackling the database as a corpus or
research guides organized according to stated results and assorted with explanations and
bibliographies to give a further context. 17
According to this, we will present in the following paragraph an ongoing project of resuming
from deposits our local historical special collection of United Nations Official documents (1969-
1994), belonging to the first twenty-five years of participation to the Statute of Depository
Libraries.

        2.2 The methodology: finding and sharing data
Our local collection consists of official documents and periodicals received in more than fifty
years of participation to the Program. To celebrate the above-mentioned anniversary, we decided
to revamp the collection working on the two main elements: periodicals and documents, to give

15 See the “New Global Search” webpage. Another search instrument put at disposal to users by the
   Library and Archives at Geneva are research guides organized by subject, website.
16 In a recent blog, Lorcan Dempsey explains how metadata should improve in the future to enable to
   make more connections between entities and creating new knowledge. See [8]. See also the ALLEA
   Report 2021 when at page 18, it is said that the richer are metadata the better the dataset is
   contextualized and so easier to be discovered and reused. See [12]. This is true not only for datasets
   but for all forms knowledge may have.
17 In the scientific area of international law some examples of this commercial databases are Lexis Uni,
   Vlex and Lex Mundi.
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    Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

our users by means of different projects, more and new forms of accessibility, also online. In
paragraph 1.2 we have already briefly mentioned the first project concerning periodicals, to
which followed another project aiming at retrieving a peculiar special collection of parliamentary
documents (see paragraph 2).
In this paragraph, we present the further ongoing project: retrieving our historical documents
collection of United Nations Official documents (1969-1994) connecting metadata found in the
ancient cardboard catalogue, or in documents on paper, to digital metadata as accessible in the
United Nations Digital Library.
First, we searched data in the United Nations Digital Library catalogue using the MARC 21
encoding system to do the retrieval. The MARC standard or Machine-Readable Cataloguing is
an interoperable metadata standard commonly used by libraries, and the one used both at our
library and the United Nations Digital Library. Because it is a well-spread metadata standard,
there are nowadays new ways to use this standard, not only for classic cataloguing purposes, but
also for information retrieval. Those new usages are possible thanks to the MARC standard
diffusion and interoperability (see [16]).
One of the dedicated trainings of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, to enhance the use of the
United Nations Digital Library, is to do search and download metadata in the catalogue building
queries using MARC 21 fields and sub-fields, as an information retrieval instrument. MARC 21
fields are descriptive fields of the contents of the metadata describing them by units, f.i. author,
title, call number. They work attributing a label (the heading) to each field (the corresponding
data). 18
This information organisation enables to recur to information retrieval techniques to build one’s
database of references (metadata) and to do on it further analysis, for instance, qualitative analysis
doing text analysis on titles (content analysis), or other quantitative analysis, as: how many
preparatory documents have been produced on a specific topic, which Member States voted,
which type of documents have been adopted and how many final official documents have been
adopted.
The underlying retrieving logic to this text and data-mining technique is based on organized
information familiar to librarians. In Cataloguing agencies back-offices, cataloguers have always
been using this standard to organise information with the aim to create indexed lists of aggregated
results to collect common contents, both for information retrieval purposes, but also to find out
errors and to ensure by cleaning data an internal consistency, considering the catalogue as a
comprehensive database.
In some ways librarians have always been (meta)data curators with the difference that instead of
working in batch, as nowadays data curators do, they have been working mainly on singular
records or selected lists of limited records. 19



18 The Digital Library allows to export metadata both in the MARC 21 and MARC XML format.
19 We own this straightforward distinction between cataloguing librarians and data curators to Luis
   Martinez-Uribe, Data Scientist at DataLab, Library-Research Support Center, Fundaćion Juan
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              D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

Opening these techniques to the public allows everyone to discover data using MARC 21 fields,
or, in other words, to start to do some ‘metadata literacy’ which is part of the broader ‘data
literacy’, or instructions to make users more acquainted with using data.
This is also a way to revamp the use of online catalogues as information retrieval tools, even more
important in an era in which online catalogues are “discovered” by multi-layers, or searched by
search engines and algorithms enabling users to search easily by keywords (this is made more
powerful by accessing to more sources and electronic full texts), but preventing them to know
how catalogues are organized (by indexes) and making them fully autonomous in doing search.
Once found the corresponding record in the United Nations Digital Library we linked it (as an
eventual reference), with the local catalogue record. The link is done by a pivotal local record
that connects the paper version (in French) to the online bibliographic record (in English) which
gives access to all the available language versions (up to the six United Nations official
languages). 20 The pivotal local record is created manually, record by record and it is crafted from
the starting point: the presence of the record in the local special collection on paper.
For “presence in the local paper collection”, we mean both in the cardboard catalogues as a
bibliographic record and in the local deposits as a document on paper.
The reference made in the local record to the United Nations Digital Library has been done
according to the United Nations Library Data terms of use

       The Dag Hammarskjöld Library […] creates content, data and metadata related to UN
       information, resources, publications, and documents […] ».

The library is

       «committed to making its content, data and metadata available through open access to
       support information and knowledge sharing, learning and research, and to foster
       international cooperation […] against appropriate acknowledgement. 21


In local records, acknowledgement is clearly stated and there is a reminder of terms and
conditions of the United Nations Digital Library. The aim is to refer to an eventual open access
online version available through United Nations Digital Library metadata.


   March, as he explained in a discussion during an INCONECSS community meeting, on 27th
   September 2021.
20 United Nations official languages were five in 1946 (Chines, French, English, Russian and Spanish),
   they became six in 1982 with Arabic. As for working languages, they have a different adoption
   timeline depending also on the body accepting to use them as a working language. Roughly English
   and French were used since the beginning, Spanish and Russian were added between 1948 and 1969,
   Chinese and Arabic were further added between 1973-1980. See [7]. However not all documents are
   issued in all official languages because this depends on the rules of procedure of each organ
   determining documents typology and in which language the documents have to be issued.
21 See the United Nations Digital Library’s terms of use webpage.
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What is not allowed by the United Nations Digital Library terms of use is web scraping and/or
automated downloads of content from the United Nations Digital Library.
But this is not the case, as the retrieval was done by hand and not in an automatic way, no data
download in batch has been applied, nor any Z39 protocol to exchange data has been used.
Local pivoting records have been created manually record by record with the aim to curate them
in a classic cataloguing way to do a “stewardship” work on metadata, aiming at giving further
accessibility and discoverability to the special local collection. 22

        2.3 first results
When it is the matter of special collections, f.i. archival materials or similar ones, as for instance
our local collection of United Nations official records published as masthead documents, most
of the time it happens to deal with uncatalogued material, or material that has not been converted
in the new online formats.
United Nations documents and periodicals collected in the Seventies up to the Nineties in our
library belonged to this case, they were catalogued with the ancient cardboard system and only
partially converted in the new cataloguing online formats. The online cataloguing was done
considering only information present in the cardboard record and not on the document on
paper. This implied that most of the time the lack of metadata filled in the online record
jeopardized the discovering of the information on the online catalogue.
The project aims to reconstruct the official documents collection as it was at its very beginning
to answer to some questions as: what effectively was received at that time, when shipping was
made by mail inside Europe (mainly from Geneva and Vienna), but also overseas (from New
York), how this material was treated locally: which kind of cataloguing rules applied, how
classification by call numbers was organized, how materials were put at disposal to the public for
access.
We had already an idea about what a depository library settled in Europe received in terms of
periodicals (the previous project), but not exactly in terms of official documents (the second
project interesting only a limited time coverage: middle Eighties-middle Nineties). In the
Depository Library Statute, it is said that depository libraries receive materials from regional
commissions working in the same geographic area as the one in which the depository libraries
are settled, but what did it meant in terms of a local collection evolution?
We chose the very first period of our collection, also because it is the one that hadn’t still been
converted in our OPAC, nor has a full coverage online by the United Nations digitisation
projects. United Nations digital-born documents are available since 1993 and digitisation
projects are made according to specific needs, moreover they are still in course, and they are done


22 A definition of data stewardship says that it is the process engaging different actors aiming at offering:
   data management, data preservation, data publication for sharing purposes, in compliance with local
   policies, legal requirements, and ethical standards. See [15]. Although, this is what has always been
   done by OPAC, or online public access catalogues, that offers managing, preservation, publishing and
   sharing of metadata according to libraries’ organisation and policies.
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              D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

periodically on specific bases. Bibliographic records too are not complete in terms of metadata,
because the UNBISnet, the first Dag Hammarskjöld Library’s online Catalogue, was created
only in 1979.
The project should have as aim to fill in the gap in metadata availability online, from the starting
point of the local paper collection and by this way making it more accessible and discoverable.
The project is an ongoing one, but some preliminary results are already at disposal.
For instance, to answer to the question how documents were organized, we can say that local
classification of documents was done according to issuing bodies (organs), and by session/year,
respecting the Statue rules for cataloguing documents.
Call numbers were created accordingly to the organ (for instance the call number ONU-A-1
stands for General Assembly documents), sub-classification inside the call number reflected
documents typology (for instance: parliamentary meetings, reports, resolutions, …). 23
According to the United Nations Depository Statue, United Nations document symbol was
quoted in the cardboard record and local call number was partially reflecting it (for instance letter
A stands for General Assembly). Finally, documents were gathered chronologically into folders
and those folders were put at disposal for consultations to the public in the reference room
dedicated to the collection.
Having collected documents in folders, transformed in some ways the nature of our library
holdings into an archive, this was done to make consultation easier. Nowadays, for preservation
purposes, folders have been substituted by boxes and ancient call numbers, no more in use, were
substituted by United Nations document symbols. In the bibliographic record, in the item
section, a metadata (technically called olim, from Latin ‘once’) keeps track of the former call
number.
At the time we are writing this article we completed the first local call number’s documents and
began the second one. We were able to retrieve almost all the documents in the United Nations
Digital Library, but as we imagined some online full texts were missing, as some cataloguing
metadata too. In those cases, if eventually the text could be retrieved outside the United Nations
Digital Library, but always inside the United Nations System, we retrieved a paper version
(normally on United Nations organs or bodies webpages dedicated to publications or sources),
in the case of metadata the main loss was the loss of the metadata in the French language
version. 24




23 For the whole range of United Nations documents symbol please see the official document “United
   Nations Document Series Symbol”.
24 Some examples of missing metadata are the official documents having as United Nations document
   symbol: A/BUR/SR. (…), titled in French as “Comptes rendus anlytiques des séances [.…]”, in
   English “Summary records […]”. They are documents issued by the United Nations General
   Assembly, General Committee, whose document type is summary record of meetings. They are
   absent for the years 1968-1975 in the United Nations Digital Library. A case of missing text is the
   one of UNCITRAL’s “Legal guide on drawing up international contracts for the construction of
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In 1969 when our local collection was constituted and it was possible to choose between French
and English as the language for the deposit, our collection founder Professor Biscottini chose
French, instead United Nations Digital Library metadata are only in English.
One of the main aims of this project is to connect our paper special collection in French to the
Digital Library record in English, to enable users to retrieve the document online in any of the
United Nations official languages nowadays at disposal and making them more accessible. 25



       3. From a knowledge base to a knowledge network

A special collection, like the one we described in this article, consisting of documents and
periodicals, part archive, part library collections, deserves knowledge management to deal with.
Most of the time it is a matter of uncatalogued and unprocessed material, which has to be, not
only preserved, but also described, shared and made accessible. This is not new, as normally,
special collection stewardship asks for specific ongoing activities which usually are: cataloguing,
processing and description, preservation, and conservation, eventually digitalisation and
reformatting, finally storage and maintenance (see [14]).
The stewardship has to be done by a knowledgeable staff, not only a qualified staff, as stated in
the Depository Libraries Statue, because nowadays the staff has to be able to deal with the
complexity of the material (archives and library), always being updated on accessibility sources
according to their evolution (from paper to online), being able to filter reliable information
(underling differences between sources and indicating authoritative ones), being eager to
properly curate the information putting it into a context to make it: comprehensible, intelligible,
retrievable and reusable, and by this interoperable (see [16]).
During the time, the collection has become a cultural heritage to be transmitted to next
generations, holding a potential multiplying effect, consisting in all the intellectual property
contained (produced by United Nations institutions, organs and authors writing about it), which
could produce more knowledge and more intellectual property by means of further publications
produced (scholarly communication), or a research value.
As stated in an already quoted document:

       Many UN Depository Libraries are located at a major research institution […] can ensure
       that UN-generate knowledge reaches researchers, [… to be] studied, […] analysed, and
       integrated into scholarly work. ([6])

This is possible using the advocacy activities that Depository Libraries do on behalf of the United
Nations locally, because a collection is truly valuable, both for research and for social

   industrial works”, metadata are at disposal, but the pdf is missing in the Digital Library, however the
   pdf can be found and freely downloaded in the UNCITRAL official website.
25 For an idea about the project (still ongoing), cf. the OPAC page “Raccolta storica 1969-1994”
   website.

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             D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

information, only when it is available. As it is said in the Depository Library Statute, depository
libraries

       make the material received accessible to the general public, free of charge, at reasonable
       hours,

or

       [m]ake the material received available through interlibrary loan, document delivery,
       photocopying or other means to users who cannot easily visit the depositories concerned.
       ([5])

The research value in the case of a United Nations documents and publications collection is also
a social value, as by the System of Depository Libraries all this knowledge is put at disposal of
local citizenship. But nowadays ensuring a social value consists also in engaging the user/viewer
with good communications activities transforming the cultural artefacts (books, papers, pieces of
archive) into further knowledge.
The research value is possible if there is a former communication answering to specific
information needs (information retrieval) on a complex knowledge base, consisting of
repositories (containing data and/or publications), archives, libraries catalogues, making contents
discoverable putting them into a context and transforming a cultural object into knowledge. For
a knowledge base to become a knowledge network, or a «distributed knowledge network» as the
Depository Library Programme is, it is necessary to

       incorporat[…][e] capacity building and diverse education and outreach programmes. 26


Or, in other terms continuing the trend already started consisting in what we called a de facto
“open community” sharing good practices made of training, exchanging, consulting.
An example of those further developments is the monthly letter of depository libraries published
since July 2021, that took the place of the former email alerts received during the Covid crises.
Significantly, the newsletter last rubric is called: “Test and share your knowledge”, where
information retrieval suggestions on the United Nations Digital Library are provided and
exchanged to build more skills inside the System.
This is possible because Depository Libraries have already “knowledge commons” consisting of
the United Nations institutional knowledge, intellectual property, and historical records.
In UNOG website this idea is already a reality as the Library and the League of Nations Archives
in Geneva are already under a unique heading: “knowledge”, in fact the UNOG in Geneva is
already an active knowledge base made of the Library, Archives collections, cultural activities,



26 Quotations have been taken from the “Job Opening” description for the Information Management
   Officer at the Dag Hammarskjöld United Nations Library in New York.

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   Umanistica Digitale – ISSN: 2532-8816 – n. 11, 2021

and a museum. 27 This is an evolution of the “knowledge and learning commons” developed by
the UNOG Library in Geneva in 2018, an idea stating that knowledge implies sharing and active
participation (see [13]).
It is only by sharing its institutional knowledge that the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the
United Nations Depository Library System can hope to integrate and complete all the different
sources of information and knowledge that have been developed by the United Nations over the
years. This also enhances and supports the System of United Nations Depository Libraries, or a
“distributed knowledge network”, where users will find nowadays not only keepers, but also
collections stewards, information retrieval discoverers, and in the next future data curators and
responsible of the preservation of United Nations information, both on print and different and
evolving electronic formats.



       Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Tamara Pianos, Thomas Bourke and Luis Martinez-Uribe for useful suggestions
and discussion we had during the 2nd and 3rd INCONECSS (International Conference on
Economics and Business Information) Community meetings held online on 14th June 2021 and
27th September 2021.
At the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library, I must thank the former Responsible of the
Outreach Coordination of the Depository Library Programme now retired Ramona Khors and
Armando Da Silva, Senior Librarian and Assistant at the Depository Library Programme for their
support for all issues related to the Programme.
At the United Nations Library Reference team, my gratitude is for Susan Goard and Susan
Kurtas for online training on how to discover data from the United Nations Digital Library and
careful and patient feedbacks after the training.
At the Library at UNOG in Geneva I must thank the librarian, Cristina Giordano, for all the
help she gave to our Library in developing our local collection of League of Nations’ documents
just after one hundred years.
At the Library at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore I must thank the former Catalogue
Coordinator now retired Angela Contessi for helping me with all cataloguing issues and in
retrieving the cardboard catalogue. The former librarian now retired Danuta Urbanska, for her
kind help in periodicals’ cataloguing issues, and the Informatician Ivano Spadotto for all the
visualisations he produced both for bibliographic data and for all poster’ presentations.
All errors and omissions are mine and opinions expressed do not engage the United Nations.




27 The Geneva Library website page named “Knowledge”.

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            D. Grbac – The United Nations Depository Libraries System as an “open community”

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