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READEX ACCESSUN -- Primary Documents on Global Issues
The Best Way to Access United Nations Documentation.
Readex presents AccessUN, the definitive Internet site for locating and retrieving current
and retrospective United Nations' documentation used by academic, national,
parliamentary, government, and think-tank libraries world-wide.
AccessUN is first place to search for UN primary resource documents related to:
• Economics
• International Law
• Statistics
• Humanitarian Affairs
• Women's Studies
• Conflict Resolution
AccessUN offers the following distinct advantages:
Comprehensive Coverage
With AccessUN, researchers can retrieve information from all major organs of the UN,
including the:
• General Assembly
• Security Council
• Economic and Social Council
• Trusteeship Council,
• Secretariat
• International Court of Justice.
All told, AccessUN contains more than 350,000 citations from 1956 and over 10,000 fulltext documents. Each year approximately 1,000 new, full-text documents are added,
providing the user with direct access to required documentation without the need for
librarian assistance. Citations to various documents and publications include:
 Official Records, resolutions, voting records, reports from committees and
commissions
 Working papers
 Sales publications
 Treaty series
 Periodical articles
Indexing of All UN Publications
AccessUN is the only electronic index to virtually all documents and publications
originating from the United Nations since its inception. Subject terms from Readex's
thesaurus are applied to each item. By the end of 2001, Readex's indexing and editorial
staff will complete the indexing of the remaining backfile years, 1946-1955. Indexing for
the years 1956 to the present is available now.
Full Text Documents
 Selected full-text documents are either appended to their respective citations or linked
to the actual document residing elsewhere on the Internet . Currently, more than 4,000
links to cited UN documents are included.
AccessUN currently contains the full-text of:
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Resolutions from the General Assembly (1981-onward), the Security Council (1974onward) and the Economic and Social Council (1982-onward).
Provisional Verbatim records of meetings that contain Voting Records continue to be
added (1991-onward).
Miscellaneous documents apprearing on the United Nations homepage.
And more full-text documents are on the way. Over the next few years, an increasing
number will be available via AccessUN, including:
• Key United Nations documents dealing with current international crises
• General Assembly draft resolutions
• Select Statements by and Reports of the Secretary-General
• Official Records of various bodies of the United Nations
• UN documents dealing with the General Assembly Emergency Special Sessions (19561997)
Complete Full Text on Microfiche Back-up:
AccessUN is especially appealing to those institutions who are either experiencing a
shortage of storage space or who would like to make the transition to web-based
collections. This collection is still available in microfiche format, however, and Readex
can still supply the complete, full-text versions of all non-copyrighted UN documents
from 1946 to the present.
Regular Updates
AccessUN is updated monthly. Indexing of current year material usually appears within
six to eight weeks from the time a document is drafted.
Powerful, Easy Searches
AccessUN employs the same user-friendly interface as our United Nations CD-ROM,
meaning that even a novice user can quickly master its functionality. Advanced users
have a number of search options at their disposal, including searching by Subject,
Session/Agenda, Author, Title, Document Number, UN Sales Number, Document Type,
Country, Text and All Fields. For searching speed and convenience, AccessUN offers
access directly to the complete bibliographic data of a selected document, which indicates
if a full-text version of the document is available, and where to find it. Full-text
documents cited in AccessUN are not limited to a confined database. If a specific
document resides elsewhere on the Internet, links within AccessUN lead users to a fulltext version of the document. A recent enhancement allows researchers to search for fulltext documents only.
A Variety of Date Range Options
AccessUN is available in three comprehensive date ranges via the Internet: 1956-present,
1991-present, and 1999 to the present. Alternatively, libraries can opt for a CD-ROM
version without the hypertext links from1956 to the present, 1990-present, and 1999present. The CD-ROM version is delivered monthly, quarterly, and annually, and may be
purchased separately as an inexpensive back up. Please inquire for prices.
Simply put, no other product on the market provides such quick, easy access to UN
documents. Interested? E-mail NewsBank International Customer Service at
mrandall@newsbank.com, or fax your request to (802) 875-2904 (USA).