UN Depository Library

Publications and documents of the League of Nations and the United Nations

Formation and Location of the Fund

The current collection has been growing since the 1920s, in the framework of the emerging research on the law of international organisations.The collection is partly the result of University of Trieste subscriptions to publications of the League of Nations, partly due to publications exchanges among institutions, not to mention occasional private agreements.

The most recent part of the fund was collected since 1949, following the designation of the Institute of International Law and Comparative Legislation (later merged into the Department of Legal Sciences and subsequently into the current IUSLIT) as depository library of the United Nations.

The printed collections continued until 2013, when the distribution of United Nations documents in print ceased. This fact profoundly affected the nature of depository libraries, which turned from places of preservation and reading into centres for information, guidance and access to the new all-digital archives.

From the beginning, the fund was hosted within the premises of the Institute (and later of the Department), but in 2020 it was moved to the Gorizia campus of the University of Trieste, home to the course in International and Diplomatic Sciences.

2. Collection outline

Within a collection stretching for approximately 250 linear metres, about 3500 books and 250 serial titles have been identified and catalogued.

The fund is substantially divided into two parts: the first consists of publications and documents by the League of Nations from its foundation, in 1920, up to the dissolution report published in 1947. This part consists mainly of 18 series of documents divided according to the main topics of Society interventions: economic relations, political affairs, minorities, mandates, intellectual cooperation, hygiene, drugs, slavery, etc… It also includes the proceedings of the Assembly, the collection of registered treaties, the Official Journal and numerous periodicals with factual and statistical data that portray global and regional situation.

The second part of the collection consists of documents and publications from the main organs of the United Nations, the collection of treaties, books and periodicals concerning the work of about auxiliary or specialised bodies. Among the official documents, the most comprehensive series are the Records and the Resolutions of the General Assembly, of the Economic and Social Council and of the Security Council, including numerous supplements containing reports of special commissions or devoted to specific problems.

3. Enhancement of the collection

In 2020, as part of the PaDNU (Peace Human Rights and the United Nations) project, promoted by the Department of Political and Social Sciences and financed by the Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the collections of the depository library were transferred to the Gorizia campus, to a specially furnished space, where they were reorganised and catalogued.

All the material, document series, books and periodicals have been added to the online catalogue, with the aim of enhancing the historical holdings, and at the same time of integrating the University of Trieste print collections with the digital archives of the United Nations. To this end, the catalogue records have been enriched with links to their digital versions, where available.

Very brief Official documents, due to their large number, were not described independently, they were merely sorted according to their official numbering. Wherever several documents on one subject were retrieved, they were catalogued under a factual, comprehensive heading.

The files of the 18 League of Nations document series are kept in purpose-built folders. In order to facilitate research within them, a detailed outline of the holding of each series was included inside the folder, while a table of contents for the topics can be read outside.

Another enhancement intervention was the sorting out of the treaties concerning Italy and in particular Friuli Venezia Giulia, registered by the League of Nations.

Plans for the future include a description for the cartographic annexes to documents and reports.

4. Notables specimens

The part consisting of publications and documents by the League of Nations constitutes the flagship of the library, due to its historical value, remarkable completeness and excellent state of preservation.

Another interesting part of the collection concerns the reports to Trusteeship council on the situation in the administered territories.

Essential Bibliography

A. Carlin, L. Lores, ‘Presi nella rete’: una biblioteca dell’ateneo tra le depositarie delle Nazioni Unite, in Biblioteca Europa – Scienze Giuridiche: patrimonio librario, fondi e collezioni, a cura di P. Ferretti e G. Maragno, EUT, 2024, p. 33-45
< https://www.openstarts.units.it/handle/10077/36223>

G. Conetti, I fondi documentali della Società delle Nazioni e dell’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite, in Biblioteca Europa – Scienze Giuridiche: patrimonio librario, fondi e collezioni, a cura di P. Ferretti e G. Maragno, EUT, 2024, p. 47-50
< https://www.openstarts.units.it/handle/10077/36224>