General information

The United Nations Optical Disk System (ODS) is a system for
storing and retrieving United Nations documents that uses an
optical disk as the back-end storage medium and allows users to
search for and retrieve documents via high-speed networks and the
Internet, and permits high-speed transmission of documents through
telecommunications links. The system provides a more economical
and secure means of distributing and storing parliamentary
documents worldwide and permits timely access to such
documents in electronic form by United Nations offices, permanent
missions to the United Nations and other government offices as
appropriate, other organizations of the United Nations system and
other international organizations, the mass media, and other
interested institutions, such as libraries and universities, as well as
the general public.

The parliamentary documentation and official records stored and
available on-line on the United Nations networks and on the
Internet, are described and indexed using the structure of the
United Nations Bibliographic Information System (UNBIS). They
include pre-session, in-session and post-session documentation for
meetings of the Security Council, the General Assembly and its
subsidiary bodies, the Economic and Social Council and its
subsidiary bodies and the Trusteeship Council, and for special
global conferences convened by the United Nations. The
documents and official records are stored in all official languages of
the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and
Spanish. A special feature for "other languages" has been added in
the current version of the system.

Subscription

Access to ODS is free for staff members of the United Nations
Secretariat, for a limited number of users in specialized agencies
and organizations of the UN System, and for up to ten users in
Member States of the United Nations. Requests for access can be
submitted to the following persons, as noted below, depending
upon location:

Permanent Missions in New York
Ms. Marie Hodge-Alcantara
E-mail: registration@un.org,
fax: 212-963-0952, telephone:+1 212-963-1748.

Missions to the United Nations Office at Geneva
Mr. Wolfgang Schutt
E-mail: wschutt@unog.ch,
fax: +41 22 9170025; telephone + 41 22 9173636

Missions to the United Nations in Vienna
E-mail: ODS@unov.un.or.at;
fax to Chief Electronic Services Unit at + 43 1 21 3467-4260
(an application form in PDF is available at http://www.un.org.at )

Access to ODS for other interested parties is available on a
subscription basis. Information on how to subscribe can be
obtained by contacting the following persons, depending upon
location:

Americas, Eastern Asia and Pacific:
Sales and Marketing Section, Room DC2-0853, United Nations,
New York, NY 10017;
E-mail: publications@un.org;
fax: +1 212-963-3489; telephone:+1 212-963-8305 and
1-800-253-9646 (only within USA)

Europe, Middle East and Africa:
Mr. Patrice Piguet, Chief, Sales Section (Geneva), United Nations,
Room DSC-115, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland;
E-mail: ppiguet@unog.ch;
fax: + 41 22 9170027; telephone: + 41 22 917261 2