The depository collection contains official publications of the principal organs of the United Nations from 1948 to around 2011 (official publications since 1993 are available online):
- General Assembly
- Security Council
- Economic and Social Council
and a number of their committees and commissions, and subsidiaries, such as in particular
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
- United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO)
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and others.
The collection includes
- the proceedings of the meetings of the UN organs, or the indexes thereof (in particular of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council)
- statistical yearbooks, e.g.
- Statistical yearbook [UNESCO]
- International yearbook of education
- Demographic Yearbook
- a number of yearbooks of the European Economic Commission - ECE and other regional commissions of the Economic and Social Council - ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA
- United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization - FAO Yearbook Series
- National accounts statistics
- yearbooks on the activities of the bodies and commissions
- Yearbook of the United Nations
- Yearbook of the International Law Commission
- Yearbook [United Nations Commission on International Trade Law]
- United Nations legal yearbook
- United Nations disarmament yearbook
- overviews of economic and social developments by region and by sector, e.g.
- World economic and social survey
- Economic survey of Europe (Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Carribbean...)
- World survey of the role of women in development
- World food survey
- reports prepared by commissioned experts and materials of seminars and expert meetings on partial and cross-cutting issues of political, economic, social and cultural development
- texts of international treaties
The depository collection consists of tens of thousands of volumes.
A separate section of the UN Depository Library, which operated in the Library for some 25 years, was closed at the end of 1997.
Information about the documents are available in the electronic catalogue of the National Library of the Czech Republic, in the scanned General Catalogue of the National Library of the Czech Republic (General Catalogue II and III, exceptionally also I).
In the electronic catalogue, the publications from the Depository Library collection are marked by the abbreviation "United Nations" (in the details of the list of items, field <Note for OPAC>).
Orders are placed on-line in the electronic catalogue or in the software environment RetrIS , primarily for use in the reading rooms (General Reading Room, Scholars' Reading Room or Social and Natural Sciences Reading Room). Monographs can also be borrowed outside the building (if the text "for 30 days" or "FOR 30 DAYS" appears in the electronic catalogue in the <Loan option> field).
Access to the UN Depository Library collection is provided free of charge, in accordance with the Principles Governing United Nations Depository Libraries (ST/AI/189/Add.11/Rev.2). If a user wishes to use exclusively a document that has been acquired by the National Library of the Czech Republic as part of its depository collection (as United Nations Depository Library No. 55), he/she should contact the Information Desk in the Main Hall. In this case, he/she will be allowed to study the publication in the reading room of the National Library of the Czech Republic. However, in case of any off-site loan the valid rules for the provision of this service by the National Library of the Czech Republic shall apply. The National Library of the CR also provides interlibrary loan service from the Depository Library.
Selected publications (large monographs, handbooks, synthesizing reports, bibliographies, etc.) are included in the Reference Library of the General Reading Room and, individually, in the Social and Natural Sciences Reading Room.
Older bound volumes of journals published by the United Nations are available for borrowing on request like other publications (see above).
At the Reference Centre, staff will allow you to access the database of the United Nations Official Document System on request.
The system allows you to search the parliamentary and other official documents of the United Nations that have been assigned the United Nations document symbol in all the official languages of the United Nations - English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish - since the 1993 edition, to a certain extent also earlier, the resolutions of the principal organs can be searched since 1946.
Many documents and publications of the United Nations, which are not included in the Depository Library collection, are available from The United Nations Information Centre Prague (UNIC). .
The United Nations website also provides a lot of up-to-date information on the work of this important international organization, as well as links to the websites of the principal organs of the United Nations and parts of the United Nations system, and access to many United Nations documents.