Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Reports

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service is a federal agency that monitors and translates foreign media into English. FBIS Daily Reports are translated transcripts of foreign radio and television broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements. The reports contain political, military, economic, environmental, and sociological news and information.

The Government Publications Library's (GPL) FBIS Daily Reports microfiche collection goes from the mid-1970s through the fall of 1996, when all publication in paper and microfiche was halted. The exact starting and ending dates vary slightly by series.

The FBIS Daily Reports are organized into world regions; each report series has its own three-letter code that is used for identification and for filing the microfiche reports. The regional groupings and names have changed over the years; when last issued in paper, the regions were:

• Central Eurasia - SOV (formerly titled Soviet Union)
• China - CHI
• East Asia - EAS (formerly Asia and Pacific--APA)
• East Europe - EEU
• Latin America - LAT
• Near East and South Asia - NES (formerly South Asia--SAS)
• Sub-Saharan Africa - AFR (formerly Middle East and Africa--MEA and Sub-Saharan SS)
• West Europe - WEU

When you have retrieved one or more references from the paper or CD-ROM indexes, your next step is to locate the articles in the library's microfiche files. Whether you use the CD-ROM index or the paper indexes you will need three elements:

• the Region(expressed as a three-letter code),
• the Date, and
• the Page(s).

For example: Dec 2 93  SOV  025. Microfiche are in cabinets in the Government Publications Library. FBIS reports are filed under the SuDocs number PrEx 7.10: and then by region code and date.

Access archival FBIS reports and other primary sources available online through the Readex database.

The Index to the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports for the microfiche collection is available in two forms:

• A CD-ROM index which covers 1979 through late 1996, with all dates and regions in one index, and
• Quarterly paper indexes for each of the FBIS regions which cover the mid-1970s through late 1996.

Starting with publications from late 1995, FBIS reports are available online in the World News Connection database. While some reports from as early as 1994 can be found on WNC, coverage is relatively complete starting with 1996, and the database is updated continuously. The World News Connection provides both an index and the full text of the reports.

WNC provides three searching options:

• Simple Searching - You can do keyword searches in the full text, headline/lead paragraph and date.
• Region/Topic Searching - You can do keyword searches in the full text, date, city/source and WNC insert date plus region and topic.
• Advanced Searching - This option lets you search the most number of fields at once and includes a region/topic option.