The Library of the United Nations Office at Geneva - Custodian of League of Nations and United Nations Heritage

Abstract

The Library of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), previously the League of Nations Library, was founded in 1919 and became the UNOG Library when the League’s assets were transferred to the United Nations in 1946. The Library continues to carry out its historic role “to serve as a centre of international research and an instrument of international understanding”, thus keeping alive the visionary idea of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who, in 1927, contributed two million dollars to endow the League of Nations with a modern library suitable for the study of international relations. With collections dating back to 1919 and totaling more than one million volumes, 9,000 serials, numerous official government documents, as well as over three million documents from the United Nations system publications collection, the UNOG Library is the largest in the United Nations system. It specializes in international law, international relations, economics, politics and the social sciences. In addition to these library collections, the UNOG Library is the curator of the exceptional archival collection of both the League of Nations and the United Nations in Geneva. Inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2009, the three linear kilometers of archives of the League of Nations – the world’s first intergovernmental organization for peace and cooperation – have exceptional heritage value and represent an outstanding resource for historical research on international relations. The most significant part of the...