The Penn Libraries now makes available in searchable fulltext online the Middle Eastern, Near East, South Asian, and African sections of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports, 1974-1996.

FBIS Daily Reports are English-language translated media reports gathered from monitored broadcasts and publications in more than 50 languages. FBIS Daily Reports are invaluable sources of local information on both local events and world affairs. The Penn Libraries own the complete run of FBIS Microfiche and the online FBIS Daily Reports index - the new online version offers more friendly access to those difficult formats. For more information on FBIS, see the Penn Libraries guide.

FBIS Daily Reports cover all newsworthy topics. As curriculum aids, Readex has prepared event-based reports collections that include these topics and many others:

• The 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe airport
• The Derg comes to power in Ethiopia (1977)
• Benazir Bhutto's first election as Pakistani prime minister (1988) and her first ouster (1990)
• Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe (1980)
• The Persian Gulf War (1990-1991)
• West Bank and Gaza Strip turned over to the Palestinian Authority (1994)

As an example of the breadth of FBIS Daily Reports coverage, consider the media sources provided in the "Pan Am flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland (1988)" event collection:

Abu Dhabi Al-Ittihad. Al-Dammam Al-Yawm. Al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio (clandestine). Algiers Voice of Palestine. Amman Al-Ra'y. Amman Sawt al-Sha'b. Amman Television Service. Baghdad INA. Beirut Voice of Lebanon. Cairo Domestic Service. Cairo MENA. Damascus Domestic Service. Damascus Television Service. Islamabad The Muslim. Jerusalem Al-Fajr. Jerusalem Al-Sha'b. Jerusalem Domestic Service. Jerusalem Post. Kuwait Al-Qabas. Kuwait Al-Siyasah. Kuwait Arab Times. Kuwait KUNA. Manama WAKH. Radio Free Lebanon (clandestine). Tehran Domestic Service. Tehran IRNA. Tehran Television Service. Tel Aviv IDF Radio.

Readex's digitization of the FBIS Microfiche, held at the Van Pelt Government Documents Microforms Room, is still in progress. Our plans to acquire the online content for other world regions covered by FBIS Daily Reports - including China, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Latin America - as it becomes available are affected by the availability of Penn Libraries acquisitions funds.

For more information:
Nick Okrent, RIS history department liaison & US history bibliographer
Lauris Olson, social sciences bibliographer