The Library of the Electronic Documentation Center, the documentation arm of ZhIF, Women's Innovation Foundation, Moscow, has been established, within the context of the project "Transition to democracy in Russia: supporting the establishment of women's rights"financed by the TACIS Democracy Programme with co-financing from the UNFPA, with the intent of providing information on women's human, political, economic and reproductive rights to women, journalishts, scholars, students, researchers, teachers, government structures, non-governamental organizations in Russia and abroad.

The documents have been arranged on open shelves for direct user access. The shelves are divided according to eight Broad Subject Headings which correspond to the main sectors that have been selected as priviledged fields of interest within the topics covered by women's rights studies. Each subject heading is distinguished by a symbol letter (e.g. F for Family). The indication of the location symbol appears on each processed item of the collection and is combined with a number. Each Broad Subject Heading follows its numeration caracterized by the symbol letter. The combination of the two elements constitutes the location number or call number of each document which corresponds to the physical location of the item in the shelves.

e.g. F1 indicates a book stored in the position n. 1 of the shelve containing items collected under the Broad Subject Heading Family

Grey literature (unpublished items, etc.) is distinguished by the letter g. added to the previous location number system and is stored together with monograph literature on the shelves in separate containers, following the Broad Subject Headings division. Ephimeral literature ( brochures, pamphlets, etc.) are also included in the containers.

e.g. Fg.1 will indicate a grey literature document stored in the position n.1 of the shelve containing the items collected under the Broad Subject Heading Family in the special container.

FAMILY ( F) - the concept of family is meant as structure of roles, therefore it includes also the term "family planning" when it is used in the sense of household management; other concepts included in this sector are: household.

GENDER (GE) - this sector includes all materials connected to the concept of "gender", together with "equality","women's empowerment", "women's roles" and "women's status".

HEALTH (H) - "Family planning"has been included in this sector when it is referred to the medical and procreation meaning.

LABOUR (L) - this term has been selected in its widest meaning, it includes: credit, economy, economic crisis, micro- enterprises, structural adjustment, work.

POPULATION (P) - the term has been utilized in a restricted sense and it refers to population and demography. Statistical data documents are included in this sector.

GENERALITIES (G) - all the material which could not be sorted on the basis of the previous categories is included here together with documents which are structured in a very generic way. Feminism as history of feminism has been included here.

GENERAL WORKS (GW) -this last sector concerns technical material necessary for the whole activity of documentation and information such as: directories, encyclopedias, documentation literature, and various types of manuals, authority lists, geographical listings, dictionaries, etc.

Authority Lists

with the intent of facilitating retrieval of information six Authority Lists have been prepared and are available for consultation:

• List of language codes. It refers to the languages used in the publications being processed.
• List of types of materials. The category of particular processed items is indicated in order to help users to easily retrieve any particular type of means needed.
• List of the Broad Subject Headings. As above illustrated.
• Geographic list. This listing has been prepared in order to facilitate identification of case studies and particular local experiences.
• List of organizations' acronyms used in processing data. This listing refers to the acronyms used in the EDC's data bank and concerns main international organizations which are usually identified through said expressions, more than their complete definition . Source: An updated version of Annex 3 of: Di Lauro, A. and Sly, M., Guidelines for the building of Authority files in Development-Information Systems, Ottawa, IDRC, 1985. For other organizations (corporate bodies), not included in this list, their full name followed by their acronym in brackets is indicated. e.g. Italian Association for Women in Development (AIDOS)
• EDC/AIDOS Women's Rights Thesaurus. This list of descriptors deals with women's human, political, economic and reproductive rights and women's health; it has been built on the basis of AIDOS data bank and two existing specialized thesauri: - United Nations' Macrothesaurus for Information Processing in the Field of Economic and Social Development, 3rd ed., New York, 1985; - The Women and Health Thesaurus, Boston Women's Health Book Collective, 1992-1994.

More information for EDC's users

All manuals for computer program are not only in English but also in Russian. We have a special manual Heurisko for user's search and print through this computer program in out library for selection and searching of need bibliographies. We are in process creating a telematic network of regional documentation centres and developing a telematics user's service of EDC's database. EDC offers service not only telematicaly but manual. Our office located in center of Moscow: Moscow, ul. Ordzhonikidze, 3-120

• tel/fax: (7-095)952-25-72
• e-mail: nbabich@mx.pfu.edu.ru
• address: box 24, Moscow, 117607, Russia
• Contact: Natalia Babich