YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

As editor, the Union of International Associations (UIA) has been associated with bibliographical initiatives since its creation in 1910.

The purpose of this bibliography is to provide further stimulation for the international community involved in the study of international non-governmental organization in its various forms (NGOs, civil society, etc.), and to stimulate interest in specific research areas and generate investigation into new domains of international associational life and activity.

The bibliographical work of the UIA has taken several distinct approaches:

• Publications produced by international organizations
• Reports of world problems and the actions taken by international organizations in response to them
• Studies of international organizations
• References collected in the UIA periodical Transnational Associations (1949-2005)
• Conference proceedings

Comments on this edition

This edition of the bibliography section contains over 54,000 citations. As editor, the Union of International Associations (UIA) has been associated with bibliographical initiatives since its creation in 1910. One of its founders, Paul Otlet, was at that time Secretary-General of the International Institute of Bibliography (founded in 1895), through which the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), was first developed. The institute later became the International Federation for Documentation (FID), and, in 1986, the International Federation for Information and Documentation.

The bibliographical work of the UIA has taken several distinct approaches as discussed below, in addition to references collected in the UIA periodical Transnational Associations (since 1949).

Purpose

Following previous initiatives, the purpose of this bibliography is to provide further stimulation for the international community involved in the study of international non-governmental organization in its various forms (NGOs, civil society, etc.). As a unique and much needed resource, it provides easy access to a broad and detailed body of research and documentation.

Additionally, the size and manner of its presentation seeks to stimulate interest in specific research areas and to generate investigation into new domains of international associational life and activity.

Publications produced by international organizations

Since the earliest form of the Yearbook published in 1910, the profiles of international organizations which appear in Volume 1 of the Yearbook of International Organizations have included bibliographical information on the periodical and other publications produced by such organizations. For example a Catalogue des publications d'associations internationales was published by the UIA in La Vie Internationale (1921, novembre, 1, pp 197-202, fascicule 26). Between 1983 and 1995, such information was also presented in an appendix in Volume 1 of this Yearbook, as a special title index to the publications information in organization profiles. Space constraints on Volume 1 increased the justification for this separate Volume 4, into which publications information could be transferred in a new format with an index.

Information on the publications of international organizations first appeared in a separate volume produced by the UIA in 1953 under the title Directory of Periodicals Published by International Non-Governmental Organizations. This contained a total of 699 entries. A revised edition was published in 1959, containing 1,340 entries; another revision was published in 1969 containing 1,734 entries.

The UIA was represented in a number of discussions relating to the challenges of bibliographical control of intergovernmental, and especially United Nations, documentation and produced commissioned reports for two such events.

Reports of world problems and the actions taken by international organizations in response to them

Bibliographical work by the UIA on the problems and issues to which international organizations respond dates back to its origins in 1910. It was, for a time, continued through the work on conference proceedings, terminated in 1970 (see below).

The work continued in a different form in the bibliography included in the 1991 edition of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, and extended in the 1994/95 edition with a bibliography on the strategies and initiatives taken by international organizations. The Encyclopedia is now published online; bibliographic references continue to be added as part of the overall development of the project.

Studies of international organizations

In addition to bibliographical information appearing in Transnational Associations, the former Secretary-General of the UIA, George Patrick Speeckaert produced International Institutions and International Organization: a select bibliography in 1956, containing 783 entries. A revised edition was produced under the title Select Bibliography on International Organization in 1965 containing 1,080 entries. A cumulative index to articles that had appeared in Transnational Associations under its earlier names was produced by Eyvind S Tew in 1962 under the title The First Ten Years of International Associations.

A comprehensive bibliography of studies of international NGOs was produced by Anthony Judge and Kjell Skjelsbaek under the title Bibliography of Documents on Transnational Association Networks and published in the 1972 edition of this Yearbook. A revised version appeared in the 1974 French edition of this Yearbook. It contained approximately 854 entries.

Conference proceedings

In its concern to document the activities of international organizations, much effort was first devoted by the UIA to bibliographical work on proceedings of international conferences. This initiative developed naturally from the long-term documentation of scheduled future international meetings into the International Congress Calendar (produced by the UIA quarterly in print and PDF, and continuously online).

The bibliographies took a number of forms, notably the Bibliographical current list of papers, reports and proceedings of international meetings (1961-68). Cumulative editions by conference year were undertaken in the form of a Bibliography of Proceedings of International Meetings (for the conference years 1957, 1958, 1959), published in the period 1963-1966. These initiatives were funded by the National Science Foundation of the USA. The bibliographies included abstracts and UDC classification.

A more compact presentation, without abstracts, was then adopted for the publication of a Yearbook of International Congress Proceedings: bibliography of reports arising out of meetings held by international organizations (for the conference years 1960-1967) containing 8,500 entries. A second volume was published in 1971 (for the conference years 1962-1969) containing approximately 8,500 entries. With the increasing importance and commercialization of bibliographic information, the justification for this initiative by the UIA diminished and this work was terminated in 1970.

The UIA also published a Bibliography on Congress Theory and Practice by G C Fighiera in 1982 as part of its Congress Science series.