1978
International Organization Information / Research: 1978
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Prepared for Union of International Associations
See also searchable PDF version (original titles, sub-headings, order and typography); also reports 1959-2006
Document also in segmented format in the Kairos indexed database
Organization profiles / networks
Yearbook of International Organizations: Information on international organizations is of course channelled into this publication. Since 1977 the criteria for the inclusion of organizations has been changed. This has resulted in the incorporation of many more organizations (currently 8,380), although most of these are "borderline" organizations in Section B and do not affect the types of organization in Section A.
However the number of organizations is now such that it is difficult to do justice to many of them in the time available between editions. Tracing new organizations remains a problem. The rise in mailing costs tends to reduce the number of international periodicals which the UIA receives free of charge, thus increasing the difficulty and delay in tracing certain kinds of organization. A number of directories continue to be produced in partial competition with the Yearbooks. These need to be checked systematically to supplement UIA information.
From the 1978 edition of the Yearbook, the number of indexes has been increased from 7 to 11 with the addition of indexes by:
- foundation date
- regional focus
- executive officer names
- institutes/ foundations
- country location.
The number of organizations has made the conventional method of preparing indexes impracticable in the time available. A new computer programme now extracts all indexes automatically (at the same time extracting and coding addresses for mailing purposes).
Special computer programmes are also used to assist in the preparation of the French edition by automatically correcting titles, addresses and membership countries on the basis of the English version . This incidentally results in a detailed analysis of international organization membership by country.
It is now possible to produce "mini-directories" by extracting any combination of organizations (with indexes) from either the English or French version of the Yearbook. It is hoped to accompany such mini-directories with tables indicating the distribution by country of membership . These interesting possibilities pose a marketing problem however. The processing of information on national organizations remains an interesting pos sibility, but the initial investment to ensure that they can be appropriately used in still a major difficulty.
The possibility that it may become appropriate for the Yearbook to be maintained as an online data base must be borne in mind in tha light of the current rapid development of such applications .
The whole question of the nature of international/transnational organizations, organization networks (see below), and alternative forms of organization continues to be explored in UIA studies, whether published by the UIA or in external publications. In this connection contact is maintained with a number of scholars of international organization and, to some extent, with the International Studies Association and the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars.
Bibliographies: meeting reports / periodicals / studies
Yearbook of International Congress Proceedings: No further proposal has been considered to continue this publication. Such data is now effectively handled by a number of new databases.
World problems / Strategic potential
Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential: No further work on this publication is planned at the moment. Discussions have however taken place with the Commonwealth Science Council with a view to updating portions of it, but this would be dependent upon a more effective approach to mapping problem networks.
If organization mini-directories (see a bove) are produced, these could include groups of problem descriptions as appropriate.
Meetings scheduled / Conference organization / Associate Membership
International Congress Calendar (annual) with supplements in Transnational Associations: The policy with regard to these remains unchanged. A number of competing calendars continue to be produced and there is some question of whether UIA coverage is as complete as it needs to be. This is basically a question of criteria and tracing meeting announcements in a variety of sources (including competing calendars).
On the initiative of the Commission of the European Communities, a project is being investigated to place meeting data from a number of sources within the community countries (including UIA competitors) onto a common data base to be updated and used by the concerned parties. A report has been prepared by the UIA on this possibility. This links to the question of placing the Yearbook itself online (see above) and to the use of computer conferencing techniques (see below).
By-products / CD-ROM / Online
Addresses: As noted above, international organization addresses are now extracted directly, by computer, from each new edition of the Yearbook. This avoids the earlier updating problems and delays and ensures richer selection possibilities for mailings. Negotiations are in progress with UN/OPI (New York) wh i ch would like to purchase the mailing tape each year.
Addresses for UIA promotional material to assist sale of publications remain a problem. New clients are not automatically placed on a computer mailing list and many old clients have not yet been handled in this way either. This is basically an investment problem which should be linked to an improved approach to invoicing.
Associations review / journal
International Associations (bimonthly)
[NB: Versions of the UIA periodical: La Vie Internationale, 1912-21; Bulletin des associations internationals, 1943-44; Bulletin mensuel, 1951-53; International Associations, 1954-76; Transnational Associations, 1977-2001]
Research / Statistics
Networks: The nature of organization, problem and concept networks continues to be explored. Studies have been produced. The UIA associated itself with a meeting in Montreal in November 1976 on networks for which background documents were supplied. This material was also used in Paris in March 1977 at a symposium of the International Foundation for Social Innovation on "complexity".
Work has also been done on this topic for the Global Processes and Indicators Project of the UN University, which held its most recent meeting in January 1978 .
Efforts are being continued to obtain external support for computer programmes to generate maps of networks of different kinds from UIA Data .
Computer conferencing: As a result of a visit to various institutions in the USA a special issue of Transnational Associations (October 1977) has been produced on this topic.
Three separate but complementary studies of the use of this technique (at large conferences, for a transnational university, and to exchange meeting-related data) have been produced. The above documents will appear as a special volume in the Congress Science series after they have been printed in Transnational Associations .
Contacts are being maintained with a number of institutes with regard to the future use of this technique. It could well be considered for the UIA World Forum of Transnational Association in 1980.
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