How did UNHQ librarians answer 20,000 questions in one month?...

How did UNHQ librarians answer 20,000questions in one month? Ask DAG!

The Dag Hammarskjöld Library at UN Headquarters has beenhelping people find answers to their questions about the UN for 70 years. Questions used to come pouring in from allcorners of the world by airmail and phone; now they arrive via e-mail.

Now the Dag Hammarskjöld Library has found a way to reacheven more people who need answers quickly. It is fittingly called: Ask DAG.

Ask DAG is a FAQ database that lets one to ask a question directly or browse over 500questions and answers about all things UN; topics like the General Assembly, UNdocuments, international law, etc.

Ask DAG includes commonly asked questions, but alsospecialized queries like:

Howare the non-permanent members of the Security Council selected?

Whatis the difference between signing, ratification and accession of UN treaties?

Wherecan I find out what countries have co-sponsored Security Council or GeneralAssembly resolutions?

Introduced in April 2013, the question and answer servicehas been increasingly popular among UN staff, permanent mission staff, and thepublic alike. Recently, the new platformallowed librarians to answer over 20,000 questions in just one month.

The most popular question overall is: “How should I cite aUN document?” (viewed 59,285 times, mostly by scholars and students).  The most asked question by UN and PermanentMission staff is: “What are the UN official holidays for 2015?” (asked 22,677times).

Ask DAG is also available in Spanish (¡Pregunta a DAG!) and French(Demandez à DAG!).

Due to the popularity of Ask DAG in all three languages, theDag Hammarskjöld Library plans to make the service more multilingual by addinga Chinese version later this year.