A group of Specialized Information Services and the Berlin State Library are attempting to acquire a national licence for the database “Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1941-1996”.
Access to this database should be highly interesting for all research institutions dealing with key topics of the 20th century, such as the Cold War, the Middle East conflict, racial conflicts, apartheid, nuclear weapons, etc.
Our Specialized Information Service fully supports the initiative for a national licence. We therefore ask all researchers interested in questions of the recent history of the Middle East and North Africa to evaluate this database.
From 1941 to 1996, the FBIS’s daily reports were the source of globally freely accessible information par excellence for the US government. Serving political decision-makers, the service intercepted broadcasts from foreign governments. They monitored intelligence services, recorded and transcribed official and secret broadcasts from occupied territories worldwide over more than 50 years. Translations were made from over 50 languages.
With this database, the publisher Readex provides a vast amount of information from over 100 countries of the world on the political events of the 20th century. The reports are offered as images, can be searched in full text and downloaded as PDF files. Among other options, the search function offers such facets as region, genre and time period.
The database can be tested and evaluated until May 31st 2019. FID Asia has provided all the necessary information on its website. There you will also find a detailed description of this extraordinary data source, the access link and feedback options.