The Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York has completed the digitization and indexing of statements by the second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.
These documents comprise, among others, speeches, lectures, press releases, commemorative statements, and poems in his honour.
Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash on 18 September 1961, in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia). Sixty years after his death, documents about his life continue to be widely sought by researchers and UN personnel.
Among the digitised documents is the November 1961 issue of the Secretariat News, which documents the posthumous dedication of the Library in his honour.
A notable excerpt is the statement of the Ford Foundation representative: “He saw the Library, not primarily as a building, but as a centre dedicated to peace.”
The words by the then President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in the same document still stand true to library staff today: “Those of us who work in the Library [see it as] a fulfilment of a librarian's dream.”
The statements can now be accessed through the UN Digital Library including related official documents and copies of the Secretariat News with content about Dag Hammarskjöld.
