League of Nations: Guide to documents and publications

• The official documents of the League of Nations are now freely available in digital format from the United Nations Library & Archives
  
  The "Ghebali" guide is a reference work inventorying all series of the official documents. It provides a detailed introduction to the classification system used for these documents. It is freely available from the League of Nations archives. (Bodleian Libraries print version)
   
• The Bodleian Libraries print collection is housed in the Official Papers section, which is situated in the basement of the Bodleian Law Library. All material is open shelf. Periodicals and some of the documents are catalogued so a good place to start is SOLO. Oxford Libraries' catalogue.

There are two types of documents, the fundamental difference between the two was to whom the documents were distributed:

'Official numbers', were the working papers of an Assembly or Council and produced by committees and conferences. They were distributed to League members and depository libraries. So 'A.8.1833.V', refers to the 8th document distrbuted to the Assembly in 1933 on the subject of legal questions.

'Sales numbers' were publications which were on sale to the general public and date from 1926. These provided information about the League and provided the results of research that would be of interest to the public. Sales numbers were divided into broad subject categories as you can see in the right hand column. So '1928.IX.12' , refers to the 12th publication published in 1928 on the subject of disarmament.

Some documents have both official and sales numbers.

The numbering systems and arrangements of the League of Nations documents and papers can be complicated and the numbering systems changed over the life of the League.

Official Numbers

A. Documents addressed to the Assembly's delegations and the Member States

C. Documents addressed to Council Members

C.L. Circular Letters addressed to certain member states or groups of member states (such as parties to an international convention supervised by the League

C.M. Documents addressed to the Council and at the same time to all other members of the League.

M. Documents addressed to all member states

Used for Official documents and sales publications: Subject based categories

The Répertoire Général is the principal finding aid for the League of Nations Secretariat archives, as well as for the Refugee Mixed Archival Group (Nansen Fonds) and the External Fonds. The Répertoire was completed in 1969 after a three year project conducted to render the League Archives more accessible to researchers.

The Répertoire is generally organized according to the sections of the League and contains an index of series or subjects for both Registry Files (the archives "proper", containing correspondence, draft documents, and similar materials) and the Section Files (the working papers or office files of the sections, which were kept in a variety of ways and whose contents can vary greatly according to section; typically they may contain press cuttings and/or copies of documents and publications, but may also contain substantive materials as well).