In 1947 the United Nations Depository Library Program introduced the United Nations Depository Library System; the system consisted in a number of depository libraries spread in the world collecting and putting at disposal official records and periodicals to local users.
At the end of 2024, to the system belonged 348 libraries in 135 countries and one territory, depository libraries were national, parliamentary, academic libraries or libraries belonging to organizations and research centers. Local collections depended on when the library was accepted to participate to the system and the kind of deposit chosen (full or partial).
Our collection was born in 1969, it was a full deposit in French language, later documents and periodicals were published mainly in English, nowadays, with the conclusion of the Depository Library Program, the local collection is growing only online.
The System was led by the Dag Hammarskjöld at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Dag Hammaraskljöd Library at the United Nations Headquarters in New York has as its main task to offer documents and information services to the whole United Nations System, and the Secretariat staff and Member States’ permanent missions in New York.
There are other United Nations Libraries in the world and the one in New York is a reference for them and the former depository libraries. Tth Library offers services worldwide and free of access using the United Nations Digital Library, giving access to United Nations Official Records (documents) and Periodicals (Publications as Scholarly Journals or Yearbooks issued by different United Nations bodies, agencies, funds, programs, ...), addressed especially to researchers.
Other services offered worldwide are a live chat active when users navigate the United Nations Digital Library, the Ask DAG service consisting of FAQs and research suggestions written in English, but translated also in other languages and different research guides.
The Dag Hammaraskljöd Library digitization program is ongoing, and it is following different approaches:
Digitized or digitally born documents and some periodicals have been at the disposal of the public by the United Nations Digital Library since 2016, in the following years the Digital Library online collection continually grew.
For a view of future developments, please refer to the "Strategic Outlook" for the years 2024-2028. In the document, the UN Depository Library programme is due to develop into a new "UN Knowledge Network", called "UN Charter Libraries Knowldege Network".
The UN Charter Libraries Knowledge Network
Since 1st January 2025, the United Nations Depository Libraries System has been replaced by a new partenership, named after the United Nations Charter signed in 1945. The United Nations Charter Libraries Knowledge network will be a sustainable and enduring community of practice, no more based on a Statute, as it was the case of the Depository Libraries System, but on active participation aimed at promoting awareness and knowledge about the United Nations Charter at its actions.
The collaboration will take place via a multi-stakeholders platform inclusive of all the libraries and institutions eager to partecipate, and not only opened to former depository libraries, which will remain central to the partenership because of their legacy.
United Nations Charter actions are:
Management and administration is granted by the DAG Library wich will grant: knowldege transfer, enhancing UN data and information literacy, pursuing persistent access to information and building capacity within the network's user community.
UCSC Library has been part of the United Nations Depository Libraries System since the 17th of April 1969. The Library received both periodicals and official documents. A project has retrieved those periodicals (December 2016-July 2017) and documents (2018) and put them at the disposal of users updating catalogue records and creating new ones to make them searchable.
The local collection's fiftieth anniversary was celebrated on the 19th of April 2019 with a Library and Political Science Department joint event.
A representative from the UNOG, a Librarian, was a speaker, along with two UCSC professors in International and European law.