Statements/speeches made and actions taken during United Nations meetings can be recorded either as verbatim records (identified by the suffix "/PV." within the document symbol) or summary records (identified by the suffix "/SR." within the document symbol). A proces verbal (i.e., PV) is a full, first-person account of the proceedings of a meeting whereas a summary record (i.e., SR) is a third-person condensed version. Meetings of principal organs as well as those of selected subsidiary bodies are usually entitled to coverage as either verbatim or summary records, but not both. In those cases where a body is not entitled to meeting record coverage, the press release, if issued for the body in question, may function as an alternative source of information on a particular meeting until such time as a summary of the discussions is issued as part of a sessional/annual report.

Plenary meetings of the General Assembly have consistently been entitled to verbatim coverage (identified by the suffix "/PV." within the document symbol) since the 5th session, meetings of the First Committee since the 22nd (except for the 48th session). The first 2,444 plenary and the first 2,108 First Committee meetings were consecutively numbered.

Examples:

A/PV.29	Verbatim record of the 29th plenary meeting, on 12 February 1946 (= 1st regular session)
A/PV.734	Verbatim record of the 734th plenary meeting, on 14 August 1958 (= 3rd emergency special session)
A/PV.1502	Verbatim record of the 1502nd plenary meeting, on 21 April 1967 (= 5th special session)

From the 31st session (1976) onwards, the system changed: a new numbering sequence is established at the beginning of each session with arabic numerals appearing as the second component of the symbol to indicate the regular (e.g., 56), special (e.g., S-26) or emergency special (e.g., ES-8) session at which the plenary meeting took place.

Examples:

A/49/PV.92	Verbatim record of the 92nd plenary meeting of the 49th regular session, on 19 December 1994
A/C.1/55/PV.11	Verbatim record of the 11th First Committee meeting of the 55th regular session, on 11 October 2000
A/ES-10/PV.13	Verbatim record of the 13th plenary meeting of the 10th emergency special session, on 18 October 2000
A/S-27/PV.6	Verbatim record of the 6th plenary meeting of the 27th special session, on 10 May 2002

Press releases for plenary meetings are issued under the series symbol GA/-; for the First Committee, they are currently issued under the series symbol GA/DIS/-.

With the exception of the First Committee (to which agenda items relating to disarmament and international security are allocated), the meetings of the Main Committees as well as of the General Committee are entitled to summary record coverage only (identified by the suffix "/SR." within the document symbol).

The summary records of the Second Committee (to which agenda items relating to economic and financial matters are allocated) are identified by the prefix A/C.2/-; its press releases are issued under the series symbol GA/EF/-.

The summary records of the Third Committee (to which agenda items relating to social, humanitarian and cultural matters are allocated) are identified by the prefix A/C.3/-; its press releases are issued under the series symbol GA/SHC/-.

The summary records of the Fourth Committee (to which agenda items relating to special political and decolonization matters are allocated) are identified by the prefix A/C.4/-; its press releases are currently issued under the series symbol GA/SPD/-. (Prior to the 48th session, the Fourth Committee handled only decolonization questions. An additional Main Committee, the Special Political Committee, handled political questions; its meeting records were identified by the prefix A/SPC/- and its press releases were issued under the series symbol GA/SPC/-.)

The summary records of the Fifth Committee (to which agenda items relating to administrative and budgetary matters are allocated) are identified by the prefix A/C.5/-; its press releases are issued under the series symbol GA/AB/-.

The summary records of the Sixth Committee (to which agenda items relating to legal matters are allocated) are identified by the prefix A/C.6/-; its press releases are issued under the series symbol GA/L/-.

The summary records of the General Committee (which is responsible for the organization of the session) are identified by the prefix A/BUR/-; its press releases are issued under the series symbol GA/-.

The full text of press releases from October 1995 onwards is available from the UN News Centre.

From 1946 (1st session) up to and including 1975 (30th session), all General Assembly summary records were consecutively numbered.

Examples:

A/BUR/SR.97	Summary record of the 97th General Committee meeting, on 2 November 1954 (= 9th regular session)
A/C.2/SR.1075	Summary record of the 1075th Second Committee meeting, on 25 November 1966 (= 21st regular session)
A/C.3/SR.1869	Summary record of the 1869th Third Committee meeting, on 12 November 1971 (= 26th regular session)

From 1976 (31st session) onwards, the system changed: a new numbering sequence is established at the beginning of each session with arabic numerals appearing as the third component of the symbol to indicate the session at which the meeting took place.

Examples:

A/C.4/49/SR.7	Summary record of the 7th Fourth Committee meeting of the 49th regular session, on 18 October 1994
A/C.5/51/SR.68	Summary record of the 68th Fifth Committee meeting of the 51st regular session, on 4 June 1997
A/C.6/55/SR.3	Summary record of the 30th Sixth Committee meeting of the 55th regular session, on 15 November 2000

The full text of recent plenary and Main Committee meeting records is retrievable through UNBISnet as well as the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS). Starting with the 55th session, the full text of plenary meeting records is also posted at the UN Documentation Centre.

Speeches made before the General Assembly are indexed on a sessional basis in the printed publication Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly. From the 34th session (1979) onwards, the Index to Speeches is issued as a separate volume (Part II). UNBISnet provides electronic access to citations for speeches made in the General Assembly since the 38th session (1983) and additionally links to the full text of recent speeches.

Document symbols for the meeting records for statements made in the General Debate (1946 onwards) can also be found in UN-I-QUE. These records are comprehensively retrievable either by the current name of the country, e.g., Canada, or by the number of the session, e.g., 1st session (1946). The country records (e.g., Russian Federation) also include statements by Heads of State or Government and dignitaries made at times other than during the General Debate and before different UN bodies. In addition, UN-I-QUE lists citations for the commemorative statements made at the General Assembly on the occasion of UN anniversaries, i.e., 25th (1970), 40th (1985) and 50th (1995). Citations for the statements made before the General Assembly on the occasion of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000 and also on the occasion of the 2005 World Summit of the United Nations in September 2005 can also be retrieved.

Prepared and maintained by the Department of Public Information (DPI), Dag Hammarskjöld Library (DHL) . Comments as well as suggestions for further additions/enhancements may be directed to the Dag Hammarskjöld Library..