How to get access to the global open information landscape. OSINT is about open sources. Open sources are all objects that we can derive useful information from, regardless format, shape, and time. OSINTians thus also have access to information that is not on the Internet. As a matter of fact, the by far majority of publicly available information is not on the Internet but available elsewhere.

A means to get access to ”offline” information is by using national bibliographies. Since the invention of book printing, almost every country in the world maintains a regular list of everything being published in that country: journals, papers, maps, records, books, serials, just every piece of publicly available information. Such lists are called a national bibliography. It gives access to (almost) everything.

A famous one is the British National Bibliography. The online version can be found at https://bl.natbib-lod.org/advanced-search with excellent search facilities: by title, author, subject, classification code (Dewey). Boolean supported. Another one is the Bibliographie Nationale Francaise at https://bibliographienationale.bnf.fr/search/advancedSearch.show. Ful Boolean supported, Dewey and search by year, language, titlewords, authors, publishers etc.

How to find out which countries have a national bibliography? Or just to find out which national bibliographies are available? Simple. Use a bibliography of bibliographies. Such as the Besterman, Walfords, or better even: Eugene Paul Sheehy’s Guide to Reference books, my persona favourite. Ask your OSINTian or librarian for more information, or use the OSINT Repertorium at http://rr.reuser.biz