The UNESCO Digital Library

The UNESCO Digital Library is a key tool for enabling UNESCO’s mission of building peace in the minds of people, in particular by “advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding, and encouraging cooperation among the nations in all branches of intellectual activity, including […] the exchange of publications, objects of artistic and scientific interest and other materials of information” (UNESCO Constitution).

In more concrete terms, it provides access to publications, documents and other materials either produced by UNESCO or pertaining to UNESCO’s fields of competence. These collections are accessible online or physically - at the library or the archives room.

The UNESCO Digital Library is constantly enriched with new publications and documents produced by UNESCO, as well as with acquisitions, resources shared by other institutions and donations. Furthermore, new digital materials are produced daily under a major ongoing project “Digitizing our shared UNESCO history”, which allows to preserve and share thousands of collection items, previously unavailable electronically. They will be integrated in the UNESCO Digital Library in the near future.

The UNESCO Digital Library is the repository of UNESCO’s institutional memory and a source of high-quality information on UNESCO activities (in education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information), with more than 350,000 documents dating back to 1945. It includes the collections of the UNESCO Library and several documentation centres in UNESCO’s Field Offices and Institutes, as well as the UNESCO Archives. The essential purpose of the UNESCO Digital Library is to share knowledge and to transmit it to future generations.