UNBISnet
 
UNBIS Guidelines for Specific Types of UN Documents and Publications

 

D. Letters and notes verbales

Subject entries
Name entries
Content Codes
Notes and annotations




Subject entries are made for:

1. Subjects under consideration by the UN

2. In cases where a letter or note transmits resolutions, recommendations, etc. of an intergovernmental body, entries are made for the main subjects of the transmitted texts. Corporate or conference subject headings are assigned (tags 610 or 611) with appropriate modifying terms in subfield $g

Examples:

610 2 7 $a UN. Office of Internal Oversight Services $g Recommendations

611 2 7 $a Inter-Parliamentary Conference (103rd : 2000 : Amman) $g Resolutions and decisions

3. Other significant subjects

Primary geographic subject terms (tag 650 first indicator 1) should be assigned in conformity with the geographic linkage of subjects. Indexers should ensure that only neutral terms are linked with primary geographic subject terms.

A consistent approach is important in assigning subject terms to denote specific incidents, events and situations. Letters or notes verbales concerning the same situation or event may be submitted as different documents, sometimes in different document series. Indexers should ensure that specific events are indexed consistently by checking the database and viewing records for other documents on the same topic.

For example, similar letters from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic were transmitted as a Security Council document on 6 January 2006 and as a Commission on Human Rights document on 11 January 2006. While there is variation in other subject terms assigned for the two letters, the main subjects assigned to the two letters are consistent.

191 $a S/2006/6
520 $a Transmits letter from the Syrian Government concerning Israeli plan to divide the Syrian occupied village of al-Ghajar, which allegedly constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law, in particular the 4th Geneva Convention.
650 1 7 $a SETTLEMENT POLICY
650 1 7 $a SEPARATION BARRIERS
650 1 7 $a GOLAN HEIGHTS
650 1 7 $a ISRAEL
650 1 7 $a SYRIANS
650 1 7 $a TERRITORIES OCCUPIED BY ISRAEL

191 $a E/CN.4/2006/G/4
520 $a Transmits letter from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic addressed to the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding Israeli practices aiming towards the partition of the Syrian village of Al-Ghajar into two parts.
650 1 7 $a SETTLEMENT POLICY
650 1 7 $a SEPARATION BARRIERS
650 1 7 $a ISRAEL
650 1 7 $a GOLAN HEIGHTS
650 1 7 $a SYRIANS
650 1 7 $a TERRITORIES OCCUPIED BY ISRAEL

Back to top



Name entries
are made for:

1. The Government or UN office-holder (e.g. President of the Security Council, UN Secretary-General) transmitting the letter/note verbale

2. Governments, intergovernmental bodies, meetings, etc., responsible for text of statements, declarations, resolutions, recommendations, etc., that are transmitted in letters/notes verbales

Example 1 (A/62/654):

245 1 0 $a Letter dated 2008/01/11 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of Spain to the United Nations addressed to the President of the General Assembly
520 $a Transmits Declaration of Madrid, outcome of the Expert Group Meeting entitled “Making it Work : Civil Society Participation in the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” held in Madrid, 27-29 Nov. 2007.
710 2 _ $a Spain
711 2 _ $a Expert Group Meeting “Making it Work : Civil Society Participation in the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (2007 : Madrid)

Example 2 (S/2007/789):

245 1 0 $a Letter dated 2007/12/27 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council
520 $a Transmits letter dated 18 Dec. 2007 from Nepal requesting an extension of the mandate of the UN Mission in Nepal for a period of 6 months from the date of expiry of its current mandate.
710 2 _ $a UN. Secretary-General
710 2 _ $a Nepal

Back to top



Content Codes
:

Assign Content Code B15 to letters and notes verbales of the UN Secretary-General, and Content Code B18 to other letters and notes verbales.

In addition to Content Code B15 or B18, assign Code A08 when the text of laws, recommendations, non-UN resolutions, etc., is transmitted in letters or notes verbales. Assign Content Code A20 when text of a multilateral declaration is transmitted.

Back to top



Notes and annotations:

Titles of letters and notes verbales often provide only the date of transmittal (recorded in coded form: YYYY/MM/DD), the transmitting official and the addressee.
Letters often require notes/annotations to furnish more detailed information than is provided by the title.

Examples:

245 10 $a Letter dated 2006/01/05 from the Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council
520 $a Requests that the Security Council place the situation in northern Uganda on its agenda for immediate consideration.

245 1 0 $a Identical notes verbales dated 2005/11/14 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council
520 $a Concerns the work of the Syrian Judicial Commission with regard to cooperation with the International Independent Investigation Commission in Lebanon investigating the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

245 1 0 $a Letter dated 2007/03/19 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council
520 $a Transmits monthly report on the international security presence in Kosovo (KFOR) covering the period 1-31 Jan. 2007.

When a title is sufficiently detailed no note is required.

Example:

245 1 0 $a Note verbale dated 2006/09/15 from the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic addressed to the Secretariat of the Conference on Disarmament transmitting a letter addressed to the President of the Conference proposing for a discussion at the Conference’s session in 2007 the subject of burial by Israel of nuclear waste in the occupied Syrian Golan

Annotations composed by indexers should be concise and specific, covering the main purpose of submission of a letter or note; dates are required when describing an event, incident, etc. Indexers should prefer neutral language and avoid negative language in formulating notes referring to specific countries, unless a direct quotation is indicated by the use of quotation marks or qualifying words such as «alleged» are used.

Example:

520 $a Concerns armed incident involving the Lebanese Army and Israeli Defense Forces at the border fence near the Blue Line, 7 Feb. 2007.

Annexes included in the item should be recorded in a general note field (tag 500) in accordance with the UNBIS Reference Manual for Bibliographic Description. If the indexer judges the title of an annex to be insufficient or inflammatory in any way, a note should be composed instead.

When a document chiefly consists of annexed information, the annexed text should be described or summarized in a summary/annotation note (tag 520). If the annex has a distinctive title, the annex title may either be cited in the summary/annotation note, or recorded separately in a general note field (tag 500):

Examples:

245 1 0 $a Letter dated 2008/03/03 from the Permanent Representative of Eritrea to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council
520 $a Transmits press release of 29 Mar. 2008 entitled "Ethiopia’s occupation must end" issued by the Permanent Mission of Eritrea to the UN.

245 1 0 $a Letter dated 2007/04/05 from the Chairperson of the Committee for Development Policy addressed to the President of the Economic and Social Council
500 $a "Annex: The least developed countries status of Samoa": p. 2-3.
520 $a Transmits report including recommendations of the Committee for Development Policy on the issues raised by Samoa on its status as least developed countries submitted in response to Economic and Social Council decision 2007/212 of 15 Mar. 2007.

Indexers should use standard AACR2 abbreviations for months and ordinal numerals in annotations, unless they are transcribing annex titles or quoted text as it appears on the document. Corporate and conference names in indexers’ annotations should be recorded in the authorized form as found in UNBIS name authority records.

When a text with a distinctive title is transmitted by a document, the title is recorded in the variant title field tag 740 (if it is an uncontrolled title) or in the uniform title field tag 730 (if it is a controlled title)

Examples:

520 $a Transmits statement on the International Compact with Iraq, issued on 1 Aug. 2006 by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union.
740 0 _ $a Statement on the International Compact with Iraq issued on 1 August 2006 by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union

520 $a Transmits concluding summary of the High-level Conference Interfaith Cooperation for Peace, organized by the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace, UN, 21 Sept. 2006.
740 0 _ $a High level Conference on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace : moderator’s concluding summary

520 $a Transmits “Joint statement on the question of the death penalty” placing on record the disassociation of its 66 co-sponsoring delegations from Commission on Human Rights resolution E/CN.4/2005/L.77.
740 0 _ $a Joint statement on the question of the death penalty

520 $a Transmits Declaration of Santiago de Chile, adopted by the Governments of the member States of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and the States Parties to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, during its 19th regular session, held in Santiago, Chile, 7-8 Nov. 2005.
630 0 7 $a Declaration of Santiago de Chile (2005)
730 0 _ $a Declaration of Santiago de Chile (2005)

Back to top
 


Maintained by the Department of Public Information (DPI), Dag Hammarskjöld Library. Comments as well as suggestions for further additions/enhancements may be directed to the Dag Hammarskjöld Library.
© United Nations 2008-2009. All rights reserved.

Last updated: 12 August 2009