‘KNOWLEDGE IS THE FUEL FOR PROGRESS’, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL

AT FIRST ‘UN BOOK DAYS’ EVENT

 

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the United Nations Book Days event in New York, 9 October:

Thank you all for coming.  And thanks, especially, to the Department of Public Information for organizing this wonderful event.

I warmly welcome our friends from the academic community.  Teachers, students and librarians can really benefit from these resources.

The United Nations exists to help the peoples of the world.  We get vaccines to children, we deploy peacekeepers to trouble spots, we provide shelter for refugees and we feed the hungry.  But behind each one of these life-saving acts is a great deal of thought and research.

As a knowledge-based organization, we know that knowledge is the fuel for progress.  This exhibit shows how the United Nations is sharing knowledge with our partners so that we can generate even greater understanding and cooperation.

Books are a major part of this effort.  But electronic resources are becoming more and more important.  I am especially glad that today we are also putting all of the United Nations Yearbooks online.  This is a tremendous step forward.  United Nations Yearbooks document all major events, with information and analysis on virtually every United Nations resolution and decision.

I have a full set of the Yearbooks in my office.  If you come to my office, I can show you.  They go from 1946 to 2006.  And I’ll always treasure them.  But I will definitely be using this new online version.  With just a few clicks, anyone can search through this comprehensive historical record.

I hope that United Nations Book Days will raise awareness about all our information resources so that researchers working to address pressing global problems will have the materials they need to succeed.

That way, this great body of knowledge can be used in the service of all humanity.

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For information media • not an official record