Database Updates:

New Titles on various subjects of UN interest, have been added to the Library Catalog Database this week. Click here to see the Complete List of new additions.

Web Site News:

Library Annual Report 2002 now on the Library Web Site.

The United Nations Common Library Catalogue Now On The WEB

http://www.un.org.pk/library/index.htm.

The United Nations Common Library Catalogue Database is now accessible through the World Wide Web, adding to the ease of access and much more convenience for the UN Offices, their staff, consultants, partners, focal points and the students and researchers of the UN in Pakistan or in the world.

To search the Online Catalogue anytime, anywhere, visit the new Library Website URL: http://www.un.org.pk/library/index.htm. This is the First Web Catalogue in Pakistan offering full search capabilities.

Started in 1997, the UN Common Library Catalogue now contains 11618 bibliographic records referring to the Library holdings. Almost 40 new records are added to this database, every week. The Catalogue was already available online to the UN House LAN users, since November 11, 1999. But the following managerial / technical problems were prohibiting the effective use of this facility.

• The access required installation of a search interface on all users' workstations and re-installation each time the computer was changed or reformatted.
• Direct access was impossible for the staff of UN Agencies using their own LAN Servers with firewalls or no access rights for the UN Common Library. In this case, access depended on a local LAN Managers' copying the updated version of the catalogue database from UNDP LAN Server to the Agency's own server, every week. For various reasons, the LAN Managers found this practice impracticable.
• The new entrants to the UN staff could not come to know about this facility.
• UN Offices residing out of the UN House couyld not access the catalogue without visiting the Library.

Now the WEB CATALOGUE has broken all the barriers whether managerial or technological or the time or space and reached every desktop of the UN System in Pakistan as well as the world, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

The Web Catalogue is being beta-tested online for any access and retrieval problems and/or errors.

All staff of the UN System in Pakistan are requested to kindly participate and help in this process by making online searches and reviewing the efficiency, access and retrieval speed and point out any problem or just give their suggestions for improvement.

Please also extend this request to your friends in Agency Headquarters and Field Offices in other cities of Pakistan so that the catalogue functionality could be tested at the national as well as International level and further improvements could be made within test period.

Please send your remarks and comments to: Bushra Almas Jaswal, UN Librarian, on the e-mail address: unlib@un.org.pk

Library News:

Online Bibliography on Women's issues in Pakistan

On the occasion of the upcoming International Women's Day on 8th March 2003, the United Nations Common Library presents the ONLINE access to:

The Annotated Bibliography of national and international books and articles on WOMEN's ISSUES in Pakistan

The URL for this online resources is:
http://www.un.org.pk/library/Women_Biblio/wbabs.htm

This bibliography and the set of books listed in the bibliography, have been made available to the UN Common Library by courtsey of Ms. Roohi Shoaib of the Gender Equality Umbrella Group (GEUP) of UNDP, Islamabad.

The bibliography has been published on the UN Common Library Website and the books have been processed, catalogued and displayed on the Library shelves for consultation and use of all.

This Annotated Bibliography has been produced by the ASR Women's Resource Centre on behalf of GEUP ( the Gender Equality Umbrella Group of the UNDP, Islamabad) for the MOWD (the Ministry of Women's Development). A soft copy of the bibliography has been posted here for fast and easy consultation by anyone who so desires, and hard copies of all the books have been provided to the MOWD Library as well as the UN
Common Library. Most of the books in this bibliography are available in the UN Common Library. The MOWD Library, however, has a complete set.

This bibliography is a reference as well as current awareness tool which provides a good information base while planning a women's development project, analysing national situation or studyng various factors involved and peoples views on the women's issues in Pakistan. Also, it is a comprehensive list of literature published in Pakistan or elsewhere.