International Organization Information / Research: 1978

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Prepared for Union of International Associations
See also searchable PDF version (original titles, sub-headings, order and typography); also reports 1959-2006

Organization profiles / networks

Yearbook of International Organizations: Information on international organizations is of course channelled into this publication. Since 1977 the criteria for the inclusion of organizations has been changed. This has resulted in the incorporation of many more organizations (currently 8,380), although most of these are "borderline" organizations in Section B and do not affect the types of organization in Section A.

However the number of organizations is now such that it is difficult to do justice to many of them in the time available between editions. Tracing new organizations remains a problem. The rise in mailing costs tends to reduce the number of international periodicals which the UIA receives free of charge, thus increasing the difficulty and delay in tracing certain kinds of organization. A number of directories continue to be produced in partial competition with the Yearbooks. These need to be checked systematically to supplement UIA information.

From the 1978 edition of the Yearbook, the number of indexes has been increased from 7 to 11 with the addition of indexes by:

• foundation date
• regional focus
• executive officer names
• institutes/ foundations
• country location.

The number of organizations has made the conventional method of preparing indexes impracticable in the time available. A new computer programme now extracts all indexes automatically (at the same time extracting and coding addresses for mailing purposes).

Special computer programmes are also used to assist in the preparation of the French edition by automatically correcting titles, addresses and membership countries on the basis of the English version . This incidentally results in a detailed analysis of international organization membership by country.

It is now possible to produce "mini-directories" by extracting any combination of organizations (with indexes) from either the English or French version of the Yearbook. It is hoped to accompany such mini-directories with tables indicating the distribution by country of membership . These interesting possibilities pose a marketing problem however. The processing of information on national organizations remains an interesting pos sibility, but the initial investment to ensure that they can be appropriately used in still a major difficulty.

The possibility that it may become appropriate for the Yearbook to be maintained as an online data base must be borne in mind in tha light of the current rapid development of such applications .

The whole question of the nature of international/transnational organizations, organization networks (see below), and alternative forms of organization continues to be explored in UIA studies, whether published by the UIA or in external publications. In this connection contact is maintained with a number of scholars of international organization and, to some extent, with the International Studies Association and the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars.

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