United Nations: Dag Hammarskjöld Library

www.un.org/Depts/dhl

"The library staff - especially our supervisors - were very interested in making sure that we felt this was a learning and beneficial experience."

"I was exposed to an international library environment, given an opportunity to learn, and treated with respect. I hope I did as much for them."

"They seemed genuinely grateful for the fresh perspective and energy that our group brought and very eager to host more students next year."

Six SI students worked with the United Nations' Dag Hammerarskjöld Library during ASB 2003. In addition to working on their projects, the students got tours of the UN and the library and were special guests at a luncheon of library supervisors. One student had this to say of her UN experience:

It was a privilege to spend a week there during a significant moment in UN history. Public access to the UN complex is extremely limited these days but we were granted essentially the same level of access as permanent staff. This allowed us to get an insider's perspective on the day-to-day culture of the UN.

The six students were paired up to work on three projects within the library. Julie Coons and Eunice Kua were in the Electronic Resources Division where they worked on a retrospective digital conversion project for the National Archives of Namibia. The students provided metadata for over one hundred UN documents of special interest to Namibia in order for them to be posted and made accessible from the UN's "Official Document System." They also got to sit in on a meeting with a delegate from the Namibian Mission and other library staff working on the project.

Caroline Crouse and Anthony Davis worked with the library staff to find online Government Gazettes so that the library could weed their print collection. The project involved Internet and university directory searching for related online government resources. The students utilized their Spanish and French language skills in the search and retrieval process to identify the government websites of 48 countries. Continuing their project into summer 2003, they completed their search for online Government Gazettes and launched a website displaying an annotated bibliography of the collection. Since launching the site, they have gotten positive responses from librarians all around the world. Check it out:

www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/gazettes

The third UN library project focused on research for the library's collection of statistical serials from around the world. Liz Keith and Sam Jacob began with cataloging documentation on several hundred serials and then researched, using Ulrich's periodical database and RLIN, whether the serials were still in print, if the title of the serial had changed, and how back issues could be claimed. They also searched government websites for online availability of the serials. In addition to learning about constructing effective databases searches, the students gained valuable exposure to the strategies libraries use to overcome financial and human resources limitations to accomplish their goals.

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