Most requests for foreign country information can be meet with a
small
number of sources. Typical users need relatively limited amounts of
information
on a particular country or need to compare countries on the same topic.
Europa Yearbook or similar items meet a large proportion of the
requests for foreign country information. Websites, especially official
ones, can be useful for those who need to know more about government
policy
and international relations. Indexing and abstracting services covering
a
variety of newspapers and periodicals often provide needed information
on
current events in a particular country. Many requests reflect K12
assignments where information needs are limited. The most substantial
requests will come from those in high school and college involved in
model United Nations activities. Here, more substantial information on
politics and international relations will be needed.
Many important foreign newspapers
have websites with current news. Some of these are available in English
so
that it is easier than before for U.S. users to learn how events are
viewed
within the country. Two useful websites for locating foreign newspapers
are
The Internet Public Library
Newspaper Reading Room and
Online Newspapers.com.
The Lehman Social Sciences Library has an excellent guide to researching
foreign countries. Be certain to bookmark it.
Recall that PAIS [UT
Libraries web database] focuses on foreign governmental matters. Strong
in economic and public administration.
The Handbook
of
Economic Statistics, although dated, contains economic statistics
for major
countries with
charts, tables, and graphs. Some time lag.
National
Statistical Agencies and Offices by Pennsylvania State University
Libraries is easy to use and authoritative.
The OECD in Figures:
Statistics on the Member Countries.
OFFSTATS or Official Statistics on the WWW provides access to social, economic, and general data from official sources. This is a comprehensive and current site. The Census Bureau provides another list of official country statistical agencies.
The
United Nations InfoNation Data Base provides geographic, economic,
demographic, and social indicators (data) for member countries. Also
note National Information
Networks.
Strategies
for Locating Foreign Government Information on the Internet is a
another good place to begin.
Atlapedia Online contains a
brief
look at a large number of countries, large and small, and these include
some
useful preliminary statistics. The full color physical and political
maps may
also interest.
BBC
News Country Profiles provide quick guides to various contries
with some video and audio content.
Eldis Country Profiles
provides many authoritative links to countries around the world. Well
worth a visit.
Foreign
Government Resources on the Internet.
Foreign
Government Web Resources.
Foreign
Governments on the Internet.
GlobalEdge from
Michigan State University includes Country Insights with an emphasis on
business resources.
Governments on the WWW
is a
comprehensive collection of government websites. Some additional
subject focus for broadcasting, currency, elections, intellectual
property,
statistics, and tourism. Some large files.
Michigan State
University's Global Access includes authoritative links to a
variety of excellent sources. Variety of useful search options.
Nationmaster.com allows
users to create graphs based on date from nearly 5,000 datasets from a
wide variety of countries. Essential for comparisons on the most
murderous or whatever.
National
Governments of the World.
Portals
to the World by the Library of Congress provides selected links to
authoritative information about the countries of the world.
Researching
Foreign Countries.
The State
Department Background Notes are available here. More
detailed information than the Factbook with information on
people,
history, geography, economy, political conditions, and foreign
relations. A
brief reading list is included. Maps with some detail. Irregular
publication.
Findlaw's links to foreign constitutions .
World
Bank Data by Country includes key indicators for economic and
social development for the last 30 years or so.
The World Factbook
(CIA) is available at several websites. Brief
information on the people, geography, government,economy and defense is
provided for a large number of countries with an outline map of each
country. Data is objective [ignore the author].
Yahoo!
Directory: Government > Countries.
International Vital Records Handbook by Genealogical
Publishing Company provides information on how to obtain birth,
marriage, divorce, death, and adoption records from many foreign
countries. Especially useful for genealogical research
Helen Sheehy, International Documents Librarian at Pennsylvania State University, strongly recommends beginning here.
The Electronic Embassy
provides
information on all the foreign embassies of Washington D.C. There is a
search
engine. Many diplomatic missions have helpful home pages with
information
about political and business topics. There are also usually links to
more
substantial sites in the home country. Often, this is your best source
for
current information about a country in the news. Most diplomatic
missions in
the U.S. will have home pages in English while that may not be the case
with
home country home pages.
The Embassy WWW is a
searchable database that hopes to provide access to diplomatic posts
around
the world.
Foreign Consular Offices in the U.S. includes names, addresses, and phone numbers. Useful for travel and business information often unavailable elsewhere.
Permanent Missions to the UN leads to permanent missions, consulates and embassies in New York and Geneva too. Permanent mission E-mail addresses are available.
The UTK Library Guide to Research no. 103 deals with Foreign Country Research Sources. The guide is also available from the Libraries' website as a PDF file. Somewhat dated, but still useful for the hard copy materials. There are similar guides for some regions, such as no. 103a for Africa.
The Annual Register: A Record of World Events (REF D2.A7) is
a
useful yearly summary of important events by country and subject.
Constitutions of the World
[CQ Press].
The Economist Intelligence Unit [related to the British weekly news
periodical the Economist] produces a variety of country reports
and
country profiles that provide detailed and thoughtful information on a
wide
variety of countries. Somewhat pricey, but many university libraries
will have
standing orders, especially for those dealing with European countries.
Reports are now available digitally from the UT Libraries.
Encyclopedia of World Political
Systems.
Guide to Official Publications of
Foreign Countries [Z 7164.G7 G83 1997] lists official
publications in 19 categories.
Index to International Statistics (IIS) [part of LexisNexis Statistical] is often useful for locating country statistics and the information related to it.
International Yearbook and Statesmen's Who's Who (REF JA51.I57) is a traditional standard.
Kessing's Record of World Events (REF D410.K4) summarizes and indexes world events.
Political Handbook of the World (REF JF 37.P6) is another
standard.
Political Parties of the World.
[5th ed.]
Statesman's Yearbook (REF JA51.S7) is not as useful as the Europa, but remains a standard source for country information.
The United Nations Year books, especially the UN
Statistical
Yearbook and the UN Demographic Yearbook include
considerable
country information.
World Encyclopedia of Parliaments
and Legislatures. [CQ]
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations is not current, but
contains
considerable information about a number of countries. Useful for those
needing an encyclopedia-like treatment. Popular with K12 students.
Worldwide Government Directory
[annual] includes detailed information on country leadership. Try Europa first.
Historically, Great Britain was the foreign country of most interest
to many Americans. In particular, political science students were
assumed
to
have some interest in British government and its publications. I doubt
that
this is still the case.
Best of the Web -- UK provides reasonably comprehensive coverage for researching the UK.
BOPCRIS or the British Official
Collaborative Reader Information Project provides access to a
variety of official documents from 1688 to 1995.
The Official Yearbook of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may be found via the Official UK Statistics site. Excellent source for a wide variety of factual information about things British. If looking for information on a particular British agency or authority, the CCTA website is a good beginning place.
Although dated, A Guide to British Government Publications by Frank Rodgers remains the best guide for older works. Since much has happened since 1980, a new edition is sorely needed. British Official Publications by John Pemberton (1971) is another excellent retrospective source.
Her Majesty's Stationery Office became The Stationary Office
[TSO]. Originally, it provided stationery and
writing
supplies to the government. It then became somewhat similar to the GPO.
Since
1920, HMSO published an annual Catalogue of Government
Publications which is supplemented by the Monthly Catalogue.
There
are 5 year cumulations. Chadwyck-Healey published a Catalogue of
British
Official Publications Not Published by HMSO (1980-). There was a
corresponding fiche set (similar to the CIS products). There were
bimonthly
and annual issues. In 2003, the TSO acquired the United Kingdom
Official Publications database from Chadwyck-Healey [ProQuest].
Before the 20th Century, most British government publications were produced by Parliament. There is no single index. Rather, indexes by different authors and, with varying degrees of comprehensiveness, cover different time periods.
Parliamentary publications include bills, committee and commission reports, miscellaneous documents, and the record of proceedings and debates. There are several, older guides to parliamentary publications. The British Parliament (1984) is a pamphlet from HMSO that provides a good introduction. The standard retrospective guide (1955) by Percy and Grace Ford A Guide to Parliamentary Papers: What They Are; How to Find Them; How to Use Them is clear and reasonably comprehensive. Maurice Bond has written Guide to the Records of Parliament (1971) and The Records of Parliament, a Guide for Genealogists and Local Historians. The latter title is easier to use and understand.
Parliamentary proceedings refer to action taken by Parliament and do not include debate. They do include motions passed, amended and withdrawn, committee memberships, and lists of papers. Debates are the record of parliamentary speeches. No verbatim records of speeches were kept until 1909. Proceedings and debates may be found in:
Readex produces a digital Index to British Parliamentary Papers which covers the period from 1990 - and includes sessional papers and debates in both Houses.
Sessional papers include bills, committee and commission reports, accounts, and papers. A wide range of political, historical and economic topics are included. Command Papers are included as well. These are non-parliamentary documents presented to Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Typically, command papers are government [executive branch] position papers or notable Royal Commission reports. The British Treaty Series is also part of the Command Papers. Sessional papers have been issued annually as a separate series by the House of Commons since the 19th Century. Readex has issued several collections of sessional papers on micro print and more recently on fiche. Scholarly Resources issued Sheila Lambert's House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century in 147 volumes. A variety of specialized indexes exist for sessional papers, but these are likely to be found only in major research collections. One of the most useful is Peter Cockton's Subject Catalogue of the House of Commons Parliamentary papers 1801-1900. Command Papers are numbered consecutively and have appeared in several series since 1833. Edward DiRoma's A Numerical Finding List of British Command Papers Published 1833-1961/62 is useful in providing year, volume, and page of each Paper within the collection of sessional papers. If you encounter "breviate" that means an annotated broad subject bibliography of the major reports and papers of the period. Individual sessional papers are called "blue books" if they are bound and "white papers" if they are not.
BOPCRIS is the British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service. It is a web-based bibliographic database of 19th - 20th Century official publications with a focus on important documents from 1833 to 1983. Eventually, abstracts will be provided for all documents. For more recent legislative material, TSO provides access to public and local acts of Parliament. For current Parliamentary information, Hansard: the House of Commons Debates are provided daily (like the Congressional Record). The House of Lords debates are also available.
As is true in the U.S., British government publications have migrated to the web. Historically, a few standard titles were useful. Britain: an Official Handbook(1949-) provides basic facts and statistics. The Annual Abstract of Statistics (1840/53-) is similar to the U.S. Statistical Abstract. It contains an extensive collection of statistics and the source information can lead to more detailed statistics elsewhere. B.R. Mitchell's British Historical Statistics (1988) is probably the best single source for historical statistics.
The Public Record Office is
the national archive for the United Kingdom. Good finding aids for
genealogists. The National
Archives website is easily used and attractive.
Britain also has an equivalent for our FirstGov in the UK Online Citizen Portal which provides access to quite a variety of interesting, current information.
For those interested in foreign policy, the Foreign Office issues British and Foreign State papers (1812/14-), Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 and Documents on British Policy Overseas (covers 1945-1955).
For historical, architectural, and cultural records, the National
Monuments Record presents Images
of England
which is a work in progress. The UK Campaign for
Museums provides a gateway to non-profit museums, galleries,
historic houses, and heritage attractions. Collect Britain: Putting
History in Place contains more than 100,000 images and sounds from
the British Museum collections. Substantial variety of topics covered.
The Public Record Office Virtual
Museum includes exhibits of items that have shaped the course of
British history.
The Library at the University of California at Berkeley has prepared
a
Guide to Canada Internet Resources which is well done.
ImagesCanada provides
access to a variety of images of Canada.
The University at Buffalo Law Library provides a selective list of Internet sites related to Canadian Law.
The University of Saskatchewan Library has prepared a Library Guide for Canadian History which is a good, brief introduction to standard sources.
Canadian Documents includes
about 100,000 documents from 1982.
Culture Canada focuses on
culture, heritage, and recreation. Search by topic or geographic
region. Useful for genealogical research.
Government of Canada Home Page. Canadian Government Institutionslists departmental and agency websites. Canadian Government Information on the Internet includes Federal, Provincial, Territorial and Municipal sites.
Guides to Government Information by Communication Canada provides excellent help sheets for anyone interested in Canadian government information.
The National Library of Canada. There is also a Learning Center for teachers and students.
National Resources Canada hosts the the Atlas of Canada which
includes a comprehensive atlas as well as useful learning resources.
The National Air
Photo
Library with more than six million aerial photos some which are
from the 1920s. Here, three million air photos may be searched and
later purchased.
Statistics Canada is the one stop center for Canadian statistics. Well organized site.
Canadian Official Publications by Olga Bishop (1981) is a sold, standard retrospective work.
Canadian Government Publications (1935-1978) and Government of Canada Publications (1979-1992) are somewhat similar to MOCAT.
Organization of the Government of Canada is the official
guide covering all three branches of government. Issued every few years.
The United Mexican States or Estados Unidos Mexicanos is a federal
republic with a strongly centralized government. There are 31 states
and one Federal District. The legislative branch is called the Congress
of the Union with a Chamber of Representatives and a Chamber of the
Senate. There are 500 Representatives and 128 Senators. The judicial
branch includes the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the
Electoral Tribuan, the Collegiate Tribunals, the Unit Circuit
Tribunals, the District Courts, and the Council of the Federal
Judicature.
Mexonline.com
provides access to a good selection of Mexican government websites.
The Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas provides a useful
guide to basic research on Mexican law.
The Underwood Law Library at Southern methodist University has a good
guide to Mexican Legal Materials in English.
The CIA World Factbook has a solid,
authoritative section on Mexico.
Presidencia de la Republica
is the website for the President [Spanish]. Presidential elections are
held every six years.
INEGI is the Mexican Government Statistical Institute.
Secretariat of Foreign Relations.
