Press releases serve information purposes only and are not considered official documents. They constitute, however, a valuable tool for research on current topics since they are produced well in advance of official documents.

The basic symbol of a press release consists of a letter/number combination. The letter code stands for either the topic to which the press release refers or the body about which the press release reports. The number is simply a sequential number assigned to each press release and represents the chronological order in which the releases are published. The Index to Press Release Series Symbols can be used to identify in which series a press release would appear. Major press release series, for instance, are:

GA/	General Assembly
GA/SM/	President of the General Assembly: statements and messages
GA/DIS/	1st Committee of the General Assembly (Disarmament)
GA/EF/	2nd Committee of the General Assembly (Economic/Financial)
GA/SHC/	3rd Committee of the General Assembly (Social/Humanitarian/Cultural)
GA/SPD/	4th Committee of the General Assembly (Special Political/Decolonization)
GA/AB/	5th Committee of the General Assembly (Administrative/Budgetary)
GA/L/	6th Committee of the General Assembly (Legal)
SC/	Security Council
ECOSOC/	Economic and Social Council
SG/SM/	Secretary-General: statements and messages
DSG/SM/	Deputy Secretary-General: statements and messages
BIO/	Biographies
HR/	Human Rights
HR/CN/	Commission on Human Rights
HR/CT/	Human Rights Committee
L/	Legal issues
ENV/DEV/	Sustainable Development

For sessions of major UN bodies, a Background Press Release (example) is issued listing, among other things, the topics to be discussed at the meetings, the membership of the body in question and other relevant background information.

Since meeting record entitlements are increasingly being reduced, the press release on a given meeting is, in many cases, the only source providing information in summarized form about past discussions. For the bodies for which meeting records are still issued, the press release will give an immediate overview whereas the official record of the meeting will, in most cases, not appear until much later.

The Round-up Press Release (example), published shortly after the conclusion of the meetings, represents the only source of information on the outcome of the session until the formal report is produced (which can take months).

Press releases giving information about meetings of the Security Council include the full text of the resolutions and presidential statements agreed upon at the meeting. In addition, compilations of resolutions for the Security Council are produced well in advance of the official record containing the same material.

Press releases are also a vital source for information unavailable elsewhere, e. g., speeches by the Secretary-General made at non-UN fora (series SG/SM/-: example) or biographical material (series BIO/-: example).

The full text of press releases (October 1995 onwards) is available on the UN Press Releases and Meetings Coverage website.

Various options are provided for retrieving press releases, all of which are available from the UN Press Releases and Meetings Coverage website. Selecting which option to use would depend on how recent the information needed is and what approach is required:

• An overview of the most recent items is shown on the Main page.
  
  
• Options are available to search only those items released during the last 7, 14 or 30 days.
  
  
• The Keyword(s) in headlines option allows retrieval of press releases from October 1995 onwards, including the latest 30 days. Search strategies may be refined by including symbol, broad category and/or date range.
  
  
• The Full text option allows searches to be made within the body of the press release. Searches, from October 1995 onwards, but excluding the latest 30 days, can be limited to the year of issuance and may also be structured using a modified Boolean operator. Press release series symbols (e.g., SG/SM/-) can be included to refine the search. Results are first displayed according to relevancy and can then be sorted by date.

A good starting point for research might, in many instances, be a simple search for "keywords in headline" since such a search strategy would retrieve the most pertinent items. After the initial search results have been reviewed, a more complex strategy using the available fields could then be formulated.

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..