International Relations

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) and its predecessors (1941-2004) were a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to gather open-source information by monitoring foreign radio, television, and print news and publishing translations.  Political, military, economic, and environmental topics were the major emphases.

The University of Oregon Library has access to FBIS translations in a variety of physical formats ( 1946-2004) and subscribes to the FBIS Daily Reports for Latin America (1974 - 1996)

The BBC Monitoring: International Reports

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) operates a similar service and BBC Monitoring and the CIA cooperated to share information and divide regional responsibilities. University of Oregon has access to BBC Monitoring (2001 to current) through Nexis Uni.

For more information on the scope, history, and use of open-source intelligence by the US and UK, see: Leetaru, K."The Scope of FBIS and BBC Open Source Media Coverage, 1979-2008" Studies in Intelligence (54)1: 17-37.

Physical Copies in University of Oregon Libraries

1946-1951 (paper): FBIS Daily Reports (White Book version). Each daily issue contains several sections, each dealing with a world region such as the Soviet Union or the Far East. Location: Documents, Shelving Range C16A (Documents LC after JX 1900).

1/1952-3/1974 (microfilm): FBIS Daily Reports (White Book). Location: Microforms Collection, Microfilm D 839.U63.

1974-1977 (paper): FBIS Daily Reports (regional series). The UO Library has only the regional series for China (1974-1977), Eastern Europe (1974-1977) and the Soviet Union (1974-1976). Location: Documents, Shelving Range C16A (Documents LC after JX 1900).

1978-August 1996 (microfiche): FBIS Daily Reports (regional series). Daily Reports for the entire period for all regions is available in microfiche, and printed indexes are available for varying periods for each region. A CD-ROM index (DOC-LC/CR JA1.I53 1991-96) covers the years 1991-1996 for all regions. Location for Daily Reports: Microforms Collection, Documents Microfiche PREX 7.10: FBIS

1996-2004 (CD-ROM): FBIS Publications (DOC-US PREX 7.10/3) Quarterly CD-ROM disks contain the full texts of FBIS articles from all regions. Location is Documents US CD/DVD.

One source of  English translations of international news is BBC Monitoring: International Reports, which can be searched via Nexis Uni.  BBC Monitoring translates and analyzes news and information from freely available media sources around the world, covering TV, radio, press, internet and news agencies in 100 different languages from 150 countries.

To search:

1. Connect to the Nexis Uni database
2. On the left side, under "What are you interested in?", click on "A publication"
3. To the right, under "Find Publication", start typing: BBC Monitoring... the full name will appear, click on it

4. You can type in some keywords in the middle search box before you click on the search button to the right, and/or you can limit your search results and search within the results.