International Organization Information / Research: 1988

International Organization Information / Research: 1988
World problems / Strategic potential
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Associations review / journal
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Future development strategy / Proposals / Fund-raising
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Annexes

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Prepared for Union of International Associations (Executive Council, 4th March 1988).
See also searchable PDF version (original titles, sub-headings, order and typography); also reports 1959-2006

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Organization profiles / networks

Yearbook of International Organizations: Series composed of the following 3 volumes.

Organization descriptions and index (Volume 1): This volume was successfully completed on schedule for publication in July 1987. This was the second time that the publication was produced through the new computer system. Again, no use was made of the external service bureau on which the UIA was dependent for 14 years.

A number of innovations or improvements were made, partly to facilitate the integration at the computer level which the computer system makes possible:

(a) The number of organizations (and treaties) has been increased from 25,124 for 1986 to 27 ,145, (an increase of just over 8%). The number of organizations from Sections A through D in fact decreased from 5,018 to 4,546 for the reasons given below.

In preparing the 1987 /88 edition, a more ruthless approach was taken to organizations on which no new information has been recently obtained. Such bodies, because their addresses are "inactive" or out-of-date, bring the whole Yearbook into disrepute. Even if no confirmation of the inactivity of these bodies was obtained, they were transferred into the inactive section (Section H). This had as effect the significant reduction of the number of bodies in Section D, and created space for the inclusion of Section R, which had to be omitted from the previous edition.

There would appear to be a tendency for the number of "classical" organizations to stabilize (taking into account creations and cessations of activity), with the major increases observable in the Sections E, F and G.

(b) Entry quality: The quality of the entries on the existing organizations continues to be improved to the point where a significant number of organizations now take the trouble to congratulate the editors. It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the balance between providing adequate information on an organization and the space constraints imposed by the printing and binding of the volume.

(c) Keywords in text: Work continues on identifying keywords in the text of entries which are extracted into the index and which are also used to identify organizations grouped by subject in Volume 3.

(d) Section modifications: The continuing problem of the limitation on the number of pages to 1600, supposedly because of difficulty in binding connected with the printing method used, has meant that the following sections were not printed in the 1987/88 Volume 1, although they were indexed:

G: Internationally-oriented national organizations
H: Inactive organizations
J: Unconfirmed new organizations
S: Conf ere nee series
T: Multilateral treaties
U: Unconfirmed organizations from the past

The name and address of bodies in Section G are however available from Volume 2, and from Volume 3.

In the continuing difficulty over the number of pages, the publisher has experimented for the 1987 /88 edition with a much thinner paper. This makes the volume appear thinner.

(e) Index: Minor changes have been made to the index to make it easier to use. Due to space constraints, some index items had to be left out of this edition.

(i) Introduction and appendices: These are now produced in-house partly by sending disks to a Brussels printer for final film production, partly using the UIA laser printer (especially for statistical tables). This has proved much more convenient for all concerned, permitting much greater control over the final output.

(j) Quality of proofs: A new format was adopted for the mailing this year. Whereas in former years there were at least four items for each organizations (a letter, a Yearbook questionnaire, a Yearbook proof [possibly of two of three pages], and a Calendar questionnaire), this year there were only two items:

a Yearbook proof, which included a brief introductory statement in either English or French and, at the end, questions for those Yearbook paragraphs for which we have no information, and requests for addresses and/or information for those bodies cited in the description for which we have no address or for which we have received no recent information (see Annex 1); and

a Calendar proof which included a brief introductory statement in both English and French, and details of future meetings listed in the Calendar, or, if there were no meetings listed in the Calendar, the "Events" paragraph from the Yearbook with a request to send information on future meetings, or, ir there were no "Events" paragraph, a request to send information on the organization's meetings (see Annex 2). Every page was marked with the organization's reference number (previously done by hand), and all pages were produced in-house on the UIA laser printer. taking information directly from the Yearbook and Calendar databases.

(k) "Mini-directory" proofs were produced for organizations whose structure or activities involve many other bodies, or who have many international bodies as members. A total of 184 such proofs were mailed in January 1988. The proofs consisted of a title page, index, description of the organization, and descriptions of all bodies cited in the "Structure", "Activities", or "Members" paragraphs. Bodies cited in the "IGO Relations" and "NGO Relations" paragraphs were listed in Appendices. Response, in terms of the quality and extent of information received, has been encouraging. It is hoped that this approach, ie offering concrete examples of the UIA's work, will stimulate interest for specialized mini-directories. (See Annex 3)

(l) Cross-reference numbers: In the 1987/88 edition a major innovation was made in connection with the citation of relationships between organizations (eg NGO Relations, IGO Relations, Membership). The reference number of the cross-referenced organization now appears after its name or abbreviation. This means that the crosi:-ref erenced entry can be consulted immediately, without the time-consuming delay of first finding the reference number in the index. Of equal importance, this innovation also means that the name cited reflects the most recent modifications, free from inaccuracies, because the cross-referenced name is only inserted in the text at the moment of going to press. This new approach also facilitates verification of the reciprocity of relationships between organizations, replacing the need for the citation index which was previously published in Volume 3.

(m) Page-numbering: Saur has indicated that future editions of all volumes will have page numbers added. This has not yet been implemented.

International Organization Participation (Volume 2): This publication was completed on schedule for publication in August 1987. For the second time, it was produced on the in-house computer using a specially commissioned set of programmes.

Introductory pages and appendices, including the extensive statistical tables, were produced, in-house with final films being produced at a Brussels printing company.

The main modification made was a reduction in the space between entries, thus allowing more information per page. This was necessary in order to fit an increased amount of information (123,234 members entries increased to 146,249 and 17,050 secretariat entries increased to 19,335) into the same number of pages as the previous edition.

Global Action Networks (Volume 3): This volume was completed on schedule for publication in December 1987.

Despite updating of last year's programmes and some difficulties encountered in amending last year's records to comply with editorial changes made this year. production ran considerably more smoothly than last year and a modus operandi for the new system was developed.

The main visible differences are as follows:

(a) Contents: The volume has been increased form 1,464 pages to 1,640 pages, in particular due to a fuller inclusion of cross-references in Section X (see below).

(b) Citations index. previously published as an Appendix, is omitted since citations are not listed in the organization's description in Volume I. The space thus gained allowed for a fuller inclusion of bodies in Sections X and Z.

(c) Material from the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential was included, as last year, and editorial effort was put into correcting the more obvious errors/mismatches caused by the problems inherent in a computer-produced indexing system.

(d) Matrix: Work continued on rationalising rows 7, 8, and 9 of the matrix. Value and Strategy polarities continue to be used as categories in rows 7 and 8. To improve transparency. all other row 7 and 8 headings have been grouped as W70 and W80 terms; organizations, problems, and strategies indexed under such headings therefore appear together rather than interspersed with strategy and value polarities. In line with the structural philosophy of the matrix, the third digit of the heading code reflects the overall headings of the matrix columns.

(e) Section X: This section was expanded in two ways: (i) items entered either from editorially "forced in" key terms or from keywords in the text of the Volume I description were included in all Sections (and not only in Section W as was previously the case); (ii) very long and very short X Section entries, instead of being eliminated, were included under one reference (eg "Industry, Production/Life" [X2810] was eliminated but its converse "Life/Industry, Production" [Xl028] was included, and appeared in the index under both headings. In previous years this was eliminated due to lack of space).

(f) Section Y: This section had truncated and, in some cases, erroneous entries in the previous edition due to production problems; these problems were overcome this year. In addition, organizations indexed only by geographical region and not by any other key term, previously not appearing in any section, are now listed in Section Y.

(g) Section Z: Several categories which had to be omitted last year for space reasons were included this year.

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