How To

How do I share documents?

Any registered user can add resources to the Humanitarian Library.  Registration is free and takes a matter of minutes, and is open to anyone who considers themselves a part of the global humanitarian community.

Documents can be uploaded directly, and users can link back to the source.  Both text and video formats are supported.

To ensure the documents remain searchable, several fields need to be filled out with each upload.  These include keywords and content types chosen from standardised lists, a brief document description (which can often be copy-pasted from the first page of the document), the subject country or region, and a few other basics (title, author, publisher, language, etc).

How do I find documents?

Several search methods are in place to find the right resources within the Humanitarian Library's document base:

Map search: From the homepage, click "search the map" and zoom in by region, subregion, or country for locally-specific documents.  Press your browser's back button or the region path on the lower right to zoom back out.  Region groupings follow UN standards.

Keyword search: Click on the search bar in the menu bar and hit return, then choose keywords by opening the list of categories in the left column.  Clicking on multiple keywords yields search results which meet all of the highlighted keywords.  This relies on uploaders tagging resources from a standardised list of categories.

Free text search:  Enter any search word in the search bar at the top of the page.  This method searches within titles, descriptions and the text of any text-based documents.  It narrows the results when used in conjunction with a keyword search.

Recent searches: The boxes at the bottom of the page list your previous search criteria and documents.

Channels: Log in and create and share your own must-read lists by organising resources and linking to other channels.