Resources
Information Resource Center
The Information Resource Center (IRC) at the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok provides extensive information on U.S. politics, culture, history and thought. It is designed to provide reference and research services to Russian government officials, journalists, researchers, students and the general public. The IRC specialist is available to perform information searches for patrons, using the IRC reference collection, Internet resources and a number of online databases such as Lexis-Nexis, Factiva, ProQuest Direct, Federal News Service (FNS), STAT-USA, and GALENET.
Those with a specific question about some topic related to the United States may call the Consulate and ask the IRC specialist to research the answer. Interested patrons may also make an appointment to visit the IRC, particularly if the patron wishes to do general research about a topic related to the U.S. and utilize the many sources of information available at the IRC.
The following is a listing of the various resources available at the IRC.
Lexis-Nexis is a database service that provides access to over 700 legal and news electronic libraries, including newspapers, magazines, wire services, newsletters, journals, and legal resources such as court cases and state codes. For the most part, it is a full-text database that allows one to search and display the entire texts of articles.
ProQuest Direct is a database of over 4,000 indexed titles and over 2,000 full text journals with images.
FNS provides transcripts to testimony, briefings, press conferences and congressional hearings with questions and answers. FNS also produces a daybook, which details significant events in Washington as well as cabinet officer schedules.
STAT-USA contains information on U.S. statistics, including the information from the National Trade Data Bank.
GALENET represents several online databases, such as Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedia of Associations, Gale Business Resources, Gale Directory of Databases, and Research Centers and Services Directory.
More than 40 key periodicals, predominantly from the U.S. (Business Week, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Economist, Science, Scientific American, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Far Eastern Economic Review, etc.) are available for review in hard copy.
The collection also includes reference titles on CD-ROM, including Foundation Directory, The Constitution Papers, Atlas of the U.S. Presidents, Landmark Documents in American History, etc. and updated versions of multimedia encyclopedias (Encarta, Grolier, Britannica).
Information Programs
The Bureau of International Information Programs offers a number of electronic publications that provide information about the United States, including the following:
America.gov - Telling America's story. The site provides general information about the United States in both English and Russian.
The Washington File provides texts of U.S. Government official speeches, press conferences and policy statements.
Electronic Journals are published on five issue areas: Economic Perspectives, Global Issues, Issues of Democracy, U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, and U.S. Society and Values.
The Information Resource Center also maintains a daily electronic distribution list that provides information on selected U.S. Government documents recently made available in Russian, as well as highlights from the latest Russian editions of Electronic Journals. If you would like to subscribe to this service, please send an email of request to pavlad@state.gov.
Contact Information
Information Resource Center
U.S. Consulate General
32 Pushkinskaya Street
690001 Vladivostok, Russia
tel. (7-4232) 30 00 70, ext. 4107 or 4109
fax: (7-4232) 30 00 95
email: pavlad@state.gov