The UNESDOC database contains the full text and bibliographic records of documents and publications published by UNESCO since 1945 as well as bibliographic records of library acquisitions.
These documents and publications are produced by UNESCO Offices and Institutes and cover all areas of its activities: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information.

 

A basic search is:

• Restricted to the fields of bibliographic records ( Bibliographic description of a document/publication: title, author, language, descriptors, etc. )


and can be:

• Widened to the full text of PDF documents (Portable Document Format: identical to the print document)

How to search?

• You can search in English, French or Spanish (Russian, Arabic and Chinese for documents published from 2003). Searching in English will be more exhaustive.
• Words like "a, the, for" are not searchable. See the list of stopwords
• It is possible to truncate a word or a phrase; you can truncate on the left and/or on the right using the asterisk *:

• Implicit field connectors : fields are implicitly connected with AND.

• Multimedia (in advanced and expert search) :
  Searches the audiovisual material produced or sponsored by UNESCO that is available through the Multimedia Archives. The field “Multimedia website” in the record gives information about the available languages.
• Free access - Rights Reserved (in advanced and expert search):
  You can limit your search to UNESCO documents/publications in full text ( technical documents, working papers, conference papers, reports (from Headquarters, Regional Offices and affiliate institutes), articles in selected UNESCO periodicals, Governing Bodies documents (resolutions & decisions of the General Conference and Executive Board, speeches of the Director-General), etc.
  New full text links are continuously added.
• Open Access (in advanced and expert search):
  Open Access (OA) is free, immediate, permanent online access to research outputs for anyone. It envisages that the rights holder grants worldwide right to copy, use, distribute, transmit, and make derivative works in any format for any lawful activities with proper attribution to the original author. Some rights might be reserved for adaptation and derivative works. For more information, please see the Open Access FAQ.

Document types

• UNESCO documents
- Technical documents (from Headquarters, Regional Offices and affiliate institutes): working papers, conference papers, reports ...
- Governing Bodies documents: resolutions & decisions of the General Conference and Executive Board
- Speeches of the Director-General

• UNESCO publications
- Published and commercialized by UNESCO. Publications are available in full text via UNESDOC.
- Contact library@unesco.org for titles that are not on open access (restricted) or "no full text".

• Periodicals
Journals, both regular and irregular in the Library collection

• Non UNESCO publications
Monographs, reference materials and periodicals published externally; available for consultation in the UNESCO Library Reading Room

• UNESCO sponsored publications
Published with the financial assistance of UNESCO

• Non UNESCO online resources
A selection of exclusively online resources published externally: encyclopaedias, atlases, directories, databases, portals, etc.

Meaning of fields

• Words from text - searches for words or groups of words in the body of the document itself (pdf files).
• Words from title - searches for words or groups of words in the title (of documents, publications, as well as titles of chapters of a publication, or titles of periodical articles).
• Words from record - searches for words or groups of words in most of the fields present in a bibliographic record.
• Author- searches for one author at a time.
eg.: Hallak or hallak
eg.: Hallak*Jacques or hallak*j
If you are unsure of the spelling, truncate with asterisk, right or left
eg.: Hal* or *Allak
or clik on the "List" button to display all authors

• Corporate author - searches for one corporate author at a time.
eg.: OECD

• Language - allows you to limit search to one of the official languages of the UN System.
• Publication year allows you to limit search to:
one year: eg.: 1996
or
a period of time: eg.: from 1996 to 2000

• Keywords - words or groups of words selected to express the subject matter of a work (see UNESCO Thesaurus)
Type a few letters and click on the "list" button to display a list of kewords related to your search (you can search in English, French, Spanish or Russian)

• Series title (analytics) -: searches for words or groups of words in the title of a periodical (in English only) or the main title of a publication consisting of individually indexed chapters.
eg.: International social science journal
eg.: World science report

• Meeting - searches for words or groups of words in the name of a meeting/conference
eg.: World Conference on Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century (mainly in English)

• Document code - searches for the unique code assigned to a UNESCO document
eg.: ED.2002/CONF.802/1 or ED 2003 CONF 802 1 or ED2003CONF8021

• Microfiche n° - searches for the unique number assigned to a document on microfiche (mainly for internal use).
• Country of publication - country where the monograph or periodical was published.
• Publisher - name of publisher of a monograph or a periodical.
• ISBN/ISSN - searches for ISBN (International Standard Book Number) or ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
Enter:
- ISBN: 9197369179
- ISSN: 0304-3037

• Call No [Lib.] - UDC (Universal Decimal Classification): shelf number of UNESCO Library holdings (internal use)
• Archive shelf N° - Shelf number of Archive holdings (internal use)
• Call No [Doc. Centers] - Shelf number of the various UNESCO documentation centres holdings (internal use)
• Record number - Sequential number assigned automatically to bibliographic records
• Bibliographic record - Bibliographic description of a document/publication (title, author, language, descriptors, etc.)

Meaning of options

• All words in the same phrase - searches for one or several words in the same phrase
• All words in the same field - searches for one or several words in the specified field
• Similar phrase - searches for a similar expression
• Exact phrase - searches for an exact phrase
• All words in the same document - searches for one or several words in the same document
• Any word in document - searches for any word in document

Search result

• PDF - Portable Document Format: identical to the print document. To open the PDF click on the language of the search result

• More - Display the bibliographic description of a document/publication (title, author, language, descriptors, etc.
• Restricted or No full text - Contact library@unesco.org for titles that are not on open access
• Select, display and send your search result. You can select and display up to 300 bibliographic records at a time. Over that number you have to select them one by one.
• Languages:
  Eng = English - Fre = French - Spa = Spanish - Rus = Russian - Ara = Arabic - Chi = Chinese - Mul = Multiple languages
  > Other language codes

Meaning of font faces in the search result

• ENG: - reliability: 100% - Original text electronically submitted by the document's authors
• ENG: - reliability: 99,8% - O.C.R : text (1)
• eng: - reliability: 70% or less - O.C.R - image + embedded text (2)
• eng: - reliability: N/A- Image of the original paper document
• Search terms are higlighted.
  To display pages of documents including the searched terms (hits), click in the list of results, on the language coloured.
  In PDF file, to go to next occurrence with hits, click in the menu bar on