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How to Use the UN Digital Library

How to Export

NOTE: It’s not easy to export unless you really know your MARC fields! It pays to do several downloads with various configurations in order to get the best results.

The UNBIS Manuals are your friends: 

Also, if you have a bunch of similar records, look at the MARC format to identify good fields for export.

 

Key fields for various records (fields in bold are local fields)

MARC field

Field contains

Bib records

Voting

Speeches

Notes

191%%a

Document Symbol

Yes

--

--

Most other subfields confusing

791%%a

Document Symbol

--

Yes

Yes

 

191%%r

Body and session

Yes

--

Yes

No punctuation (A74)

245

Title

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

269

Publication date

Yes

Yes

--

As of 2024, Speech records do not have 269, only 992

992

Action date

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

520

Summary note

Yes

--

--

 

700%%a

Personal name

Yes, author

--

Yes, speaker

 

710%%a

Corporate name

Yes, author /sponsors

--

Yes, country/ organization

 

991

Agenda

Yes

Yes

Yes

Many subfields! Indicators important in Bib records

9911_c

General Assembly Agenda

Yes

--

Yes

$c is agenda title; $d is agenda subject

9913_d

Security Council Agenda

Yes

--

Yes

No $c in SC records before 2020, only $d

991%_e

Action note

Yes

--

--

Contains information about actions (such as election outcomes) related to the agenda item

967

Vote information

--

Yes

--

$d is vote, $e is country name (NOTE: Manuals say there are 967, 968, 969 but these are all converted to 967 on export to UNDL)

996%%a

Vote summary

--

Yes

--

 

993

Related documents

Yes

Yes

--

Document symbol, has indicators if you want to get fancy

952 Meeting record -- Yes -- Document symbol of meeting vote occurred

 

NOTE: These fields can also be used to create very targeted searches.

Sample "Export as" fields

To export the following fields, copy to MARC fields as displayed to the "Export as" pop up box. Modify as needed.

  • Document symbol, title, publication date: 191%%a, 245, 269
  • Document symbol, title, author, related documents: 191%%a, 245, 710%%a, 993 
    • this would be good for draft resolutions to get sponsors and symbols of the final resolution and committee report
  • Document symbol, title, action date, vote summary, voting: 791%%a, 245, 992, 996, 967
    • This might need some post export cleaning
  • Pretty much everything for voting: 791%%a, 245, 991, 992, 952, 993, 996, 967
  • General Assembly voting 2018-2022: (992:2018* OR 992:2019* OR 992:2020* OR 992:2021* OR 992:2022) AND 981%%a:[General Assembly] AND NOT 590:without

Exporting Data from the UN Digital Library

For more information on exporting data from the UN Digital Library, see our webinar on the topic. Recorded March 2021.

MARC fields - Voting Data