UNHCR Library

Tomorrow, the Refugee Studies Centre library is officially closing its doors and moving its collection to Oxford University’s Social Science Library. [See this post for an overview.]

The RSC library is actually the second major refugee/forced migration collection to become subsumed by a larger library in recent months. The first was the UNHCR library, which quietly closed its doors in March 2008 and transferred some 20,000 documents and publications to the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) for incorporation into the library collection there.

While the materials are still available through UNOG, they no longer constitute a coherent, organized, readily accessible in-house collection, a great loss for an organization like UNHCR, whose staff members routinely engage in information- and research-related activities. Twenty-two years ago, Hans Thoolen, the Chief of the newly established Centre for Documentation on Refugees (CDR), noted the following:

“UNHCR’s global mandate, comprehensive concept of refugee concern and operational character are among the factors which contribute to make it an information intensive agency. The endurance of previous refugee problems, the sometimes fast changing factual situation, and the sheer size of today’s refugee population further stress the need for a well-organized information and documentation structure, which takes into account the complexity of the subject matter.
Add to these ingredients such divergent factors as UNHCR’s large number of field offices, …its cooperation with many different non-governmental organizations and its reliance on voluntary contributions from governments and the public, and one can understand why it was with a sense of relief that many persons inside and outside UNHCR received the news that finally, in April 1986, a documentation centre was established as an integral part of the organization” (1986, 3).

Today, of course, the organization has grown, the population it serves has increased, and the problems it is confronted with are that much more complex. Yet while vestiges of the original CDR remain, the core research collection is gone.

Here is a brief review of some of the milestones achieved by UNHCR’s former documentation centre.

CDR underwent a name-change in the mid-1990s to the Centre for Documentation and Research, and then was designated as the UNHCR library in 2001. Over the years, it provided in-house information services to UNHCR staff, reference and research assistance to visiting researchers, and document delivery services to those who could not visit the centre in person. Moreover, the library was instrumental in the development and promotion of tools for both organizing and accessing refugee documentation. Examples of these key tools include:

1) HURIDOCS Standard Formats for the Recording and Exchange of Bibliographic Information concering Human Rights ("Bibliographic Standard Formats") [access to English, French and Arab texts]
- Cataloguing and indexing guidelines for organizing materials.

2) International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (ITRT) [access]
- A multilingual set of controlled vocabulary terms used for indexing purposes.

3) Refugee Abstracts
- First published in 1982, this title served as a quarterly index to refugee literature, with new books and articles organized under themes central to UNHCR's work. Each issue also included articles, book reviews, announcements, and other current information. Refugee Abstracts became the Refugee Survey Quarterly in 1994. Tables of contents can be viewed in the RSQ archive.

In addition, CDR was a forerunner in the use of information technology to provide access to both bibliographic and full-text legal information, initially over a network, then via CD-ROM. The original databases included REFLEG (national legislation), REFCAS (case law), REFINT (international instruments), and REFLIT, the library’s bibliographic database. CDR was also active in building country of origin information (COI) databases to support the refugee status determination process. These and other resources were referred to collectively as Refworld, and they can still be accessed today on the web.

UNHCR continues to embrace information technology in the form of Web 2.0 applications and social media and it remains committed to providing access to full-text legal and country information through Refworld. However, with the demise of CDR, it lacks a focal point for its former information management endeavors. The thesaurus is a case in point. To continue to be valid and useful, it needs to be updated on a regular basis. CDR was well-positioned for taking the lead on and coordinating initiatives such as this, drawing from both its own in-house expertise, as well as its network of documentalists around the world.

Many thanks to the dedicated staff of CDR who, over its 20+ years of existence, contributed so much to the organization, management and dissemination of information in the refugee field.

Reference:
Thoolen, H., "Take Off in Refugee Documentation," Refugee Abstracts, vol. 5, no. 4 (1986): 3-6.

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