UNESCO was established in 1945, has its headquarters in Paris, France, and has dozens of field offices throughout the world. It has more than 180 member nations sharing in its programs of promoting peace and security throughout the world through educational, scientific and cultural cooperation and communication. The United States was one of the founding nations but is no longer a member. There are frequent references to UNESCO's "fields of competence" which it describes as consisting of education, science, culture, social and human sciences, communication, and information sciences.

     UNESCO sponsors a huge number of programs, publications, networks and databases; vast amounts of information are available at its website and those of affiliated agencies. A few tools to assist beginning navigation are the summaries of major programs and fields of activity and the AtoZ topical site map that also includes a search capability. Described here are a few of the major information services, educational units, and significant databases.

UNESCO's Education Sector

     UNESCO'S Education Sector offers resources organized around three major current initiatives, 20 themes ranging from technical education to street children, and ten collaborative networks composed of institutions from member states. Also available is an email newsletter alerting service and a list of links to related UN agencies, field offices, and various sponsored institutes including:
International Bureau of Education (IBE)
International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA)
International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)
International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC)
UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)
UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE)
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

UNESCO Statistics

     UNESCO Institute for Statistics is headquartered in Montreal Quebec. It gathers data and issues reports on cultural and communication matters, such as the number of television receivers in the world and the number of general interest newspapers. A current project is to develop science and technology indicators that can help identify the national policy needs in various parts of the world. UIS' website offers much information about the agency: its mission, responsibilities, and current projects
     A wide variety of Education Statistics are available as are reports and statistics about world literacy and achieving the objectives of the Education for All initiative.

UNESCO Publications and Information Services

     UNESCO Publishing presents information on publications available for sale including books (printed or digital), multimedia (dvd, cd-roms, VHS videos), periodicals, scientific maps and audiovisual material for professionals. A searchable catalogue of publications is offered and some recent titles are available online full-text for free for a limited period of time. An email alerting service is also available.

     The UNESCO Library in France provides reference assistance to anyone interested in UNESCO activities and fields of competence. Maintains collections of UNESCO publications and periodicals and newspapers related to the subject areas of interest. It offers online search capabilities for UNESDOC (full-text of UNESCO documents), UNESBIB (bibliographic citations from 1972 forward) and access to a browsable version of the UNESCO Thesaurus.

     UNESCO Information Services makes available a wide variety of resources including 123 bibliographic, referral and full text databases produced by UNESCO. Some databases available online are:
     UNESDOC-- the full texts of official UNESCO documents (about 20,000). Contents include speeches of Directors General since 1987, Executive Board documents since 1992, the General Conference since 1991, and Resolutions and Decisions since 1946.
     Photobank (10,000 images)--the collection was started in 1946 when UNESCO was founded and currently contains over 10,000 digitalized images. The intent is to continue adding images as the rest of the collection is digitalized and further developed so as to ensure a more equitable balance of subjects and countries. This collection is searchable, and it is possible to apply for reproduction rights from UNESCO Publishing;
     Index Translationum: the worldwide translations database (1,3 million bibliographic records)--This freely accessible database contains cumulative bibliographic citations for books translated and published in approximately 100 member nations since 1979. For instance it is possible to search for translations into French of the German-language works by Sigmund Freud; this search retrieved 79 citations. The database includes more than one million citations to titles in all subject areas and is to be updated quarterly.
     International Social Sciences Directory: Institutions, periodicals and specialists (DARE)--More than 12,000 listings for social science research and training institutions and specialists. Also includes listings for resources in the fields of peace, human rights, and international law. For instance, Chicago listings include UofC's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture; the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations; and the Peace Institute of Loyola University.
    UNESCO Archives Portal-- An international information gateway for archivists and archive users. Has more than 6,000 links, some with very brief annotations. Provides a directory of archives around the world, lists of conferences, professional development opportunities, and online finding aids.
    UNESCO Libraries Portal: "an international information gateway for librarians and library users"-- Includes more than 10,000 links to libraries, librarianship resources, and professional topics such as copyright and censorship.