Home » post » Guide of the Week: International Documents Collection

Our mission

Free Government Information (FGI) is a place for initiating dialogue and building consensus among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information. FGI promotes free government information through collaboration, education, advocacy and research.

Guide of the Week: International Documents Collection

If you want a quick way to find International Government Organizations or their publications, start with today’s Guide of the Week from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki:

International Documents Collection (Northwestern University Library, for the GODORT International Documents Task Force, 2008)

Northwestern is attempting to keep a comprehensive list of International Government Organizations (IGO) that maintain a web presence.

They currently list many IGOs from the African Development Bank to the World Tourism Organization (WTO). To facilitate access to the publications and other IGO information, the guide maintains a Google Custom Search Engine.

Northwestern staff use the following criteria to add IGOs to their list:

Criteria used to maintain the Northwestern University Library IGO list:

  • The primary audience for the site is the Northwestern University community.
  • The international organizations included in the list are intergovernmental organizations (IGOs).
  • International Documents staff intend the list to be comprehensive. They include all the IGOs of which they are aware. However, an IGO must have a web page to be included in the list. If any person recommends an IGO to add to the list, staff add it to the list.
  • The list links to sites in English, when available.
  • In general, the list links only to the main page (i.e. welcome or home page) of the IGO’s web site. The list links to web pages that are located within an IGOs web site if:
    • it is the web page of the IGO’s statistical division or statistical publications.
    • it is the web page of the IGO’s publications, if there are a substantial number of full-text publications available there.
    • it is a web page that is often used.
    • it is a web page which had been used by staff or a patron as a source of information, but which is extremely difficult to locate using the site’s navigation functions.
  • If you have any questions or suggestions please email them to mailto:govinfo@northwestern.edu.

While I think this guide would be even stronger with either a one or two sentence annotation next to each organization or a link to the organization’s about page, the comprehensiveness of the list makes it worth visiting. Check it out. And if you’re a librarian with a handout or guide of your own, please post it to the Handout Exchange!

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Archives