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- International Organizations by
FAQs on the list of links to international organization
web-sites:
What information will I find at the subject and name lists of organizations?
You will find the organization's name (which is a clickable link to
their website, gopher site or FTP site), their acronym, links to other
information services they offer (other Web URLs and/or URLs for Gopher
and FTP sites), their status in the Yearbook database (igo
or ngo), and the organization type code (as
determined by the editors of the Yearbook). The type is indicated by a
single letter (eg a, b,
c, etc). A colour distinction is made between
igo, ngo (international)
and ngo (national).
What do the organization types mean?
This question is answered by the document: Types
of organization (from the Yearbook of International Organizations).
A fuller treatment of the typology system used is given in: Types
of International Organization ("International institutions: diversity,
borderline cases, functional substitutes and possible alternatives").
How are these pages created?
These pages are generated from information stored in the database used
to create the Yearbook of International Organizations. This information
comes from the organizations themselves and from sources which cover organization
activities.
How should I find an organization in the alphabetical list?
Organizations are indexed alphabetically by major keyword in their
title; thus, organizations which may technically begin with the word The
will be located in the section where the next appropriate word appears.
So The International Association of X would be located
under the letter I and not the letter T.
It should also be noted that prepositions and articles are
taken into account when preparing the lists. If you are not certain of
the exact official name, you are advised when you encounter one of the
larger alphabetic lists, to use the Find and Find
Again functions of your browser to locate the organization you
are seeking within the list.
How should I find an organization using the subject lists?
It is recommended that you have an understanding of the composition
of the matrix and the classification system used prior to investigating
the lists. Using the lists is simple enough -- however, an understanding
of the system used will allow you to better locate an organization by its
subject theme(s) when you don't know what its name is or when you want
information about organizations working in a specific issue-area.
To find an organization or group of organizations concerned with a specific
issue or theme, go to the subject index page and either scroll or use the
FIND function of your browser to locate the subject category
you want. The FIND function works particularly well here
because only one major subject is highlighted as a link, while to its right
are all the topics contained in the major category. Be prepared to use
synonyms when searching for a subject category.
How were the subject categories chosen?
You will find this information located in the document:
Functional Classification in an
Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations -- Commentary on an experimental
subject configuration for the exploration of interdisciplinary relationships
between organizations, problems, strategies, values and human development
[ from Yearbook of International Organizations].
Why is there no subject category for "X"?
There are several reasons. (i) The subject that you, the user, believe
a particular organization should be listed under, is not one which the
organization uses to identify its activities. Our system of automatic classification
is done from significant words in the title, together with descriptors
highlighted in the 'aims' paragraph of an organization's description. The
'aims' paragraph is normally taken from the organization's own literature.
(ii) Significant omissions may occur, if the words highlighted are ambiguous.
An example is 'bridge' which could refer to communications (road, rail
etc), to indoor activities (card games) or to friendship (bridges between
people). Some manual intervention is used to minimize this problem but
it is not 100% effective.
(iii) Another reason is the proliferation of subject classifications.
The expermental one which we use may differ significantly from those with
which you are familiar. It is our best compromise for dealing with a very
wide range of subjects and languages. While we retain some degree of depth
for more common areas, we cannot compete with the detail of specialized
systems with a particular focus.
(iv) We have no hierarchy/subdivisions - organizations are classified
under all subject areas relevant to them; eg. under both agriculture and
libraries rather than libraries/agriculture or agriculture/libraries.
How often are these pages updated?
It is unclear at this point whether we will run on a quarterly or more
frequent schedule. This will be determined by the number of new URLs we
receive over time.
Why isn't my organization's website listed here ?
OR
Why can't I find the website for "organization X"?
This could be due to several reasons:
-
the organization is not on the web;
- the organization is on the web, but we are not aware of it;
- we know the organization's URL, but we haven't done an upload of new information;
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the subject categorization contains a section for "unclassified" organizations.
These are organizations who's title doesn't have a clearly defined keyword
already known to our system. Keywords from the "aims" section of these
organizations may have not been manually identified in the database. The
organization may be new to our database and therefore has not gone through
our regular processing. This section is not available as a list of links.
Check the alphabetical listing if you cannot locate a specific organization
in the subject listing.
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some organizations which do not fit the criteria of inclusion in the Yearbook
of International Organizations may be listed or accessible through the
other sets of links concerning international organization issues/resources.
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For information on locating/researching organizations, take a look at our
FAQs page.
You are welcome to submit information about organization URLs to us target="_blank" title="Send an e-mail to the Union of International Associations (UIA)" >via e-mail.
We regret any errors or omissions and welcome
submissions of new or corrected information. An organization's
listing in these pages does not indicate any institutional affiliation
with, or accreditation by, the UIA or any other body.
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