The CLIG Seminar on EU information on the Internet held in late January at Butterworths was able to boast something of a coup in having as one of its speakers Albrecht Berger from the Office of Official Publications of the European Communities (OPOCE). However, the other guest speaker, Eric Davies of European Information Services and editor of 'European Information', the journal of the European Information Association, was no less informative and entertaining.
After a buffet lunch, which provided the ever-useful chance to meet old colleagues, the seminar kicked off with a presentation by Eva Heywood on Butterworths' EU Information service 'EU Direct'. This product may well be familiar to some readers but, in brief, Eva's presentation covered the main aspects of the service that are available at gold level (for current awareness) and platinum level (for the full reference database). The talk was particularly useful in the context of the remainder of the seminar since it highlighted the value-added nature of the information available on this type of chargeable service that can be compared with the free information described by Albrecht Berger and Eric Davies.
Next, Albrecht Berger spoke about OPOCE's current project 'Portal to
EU Law' which, inter alia, will provide:
simultaneous searches in existing databases CELEX, EUR-Lex, EUDOR and
CURIA using standard search masks;
consolidated lists of results containing links to full texts in the
formats available (e.g. pdf files) and the standard document form CELEX
free of charge; and
links from the standard document to the relevant pages of other databases,
currently PRELEX (from The European Commission and covering inter-institutional
decision-making) and OEIL (the European Parliament's 'legislative observatory').
The new portal will be open to public access from June of this year and I for one am eagerly anticipating what should provide a very useful tool in navigating what has hitherto been a highly complex maze of free official EU sources. Albrecht's talk was extremely useful though his remote control mouse also excited a great deal of interest.
The final speaker was Eric Davies who is the author of 'The Guide to EU Information Sources on the Internet' published by Euroconfidential. This is currently a printed directory though the publishers intend eventually to release it in a CD-ROM version with live links to the Internet. The directory covers a huge number of sites, both EU and non-EU. It provides descriptions not only of the information available on sites but also full instructions on which links to follow in order to find pages "buried" deep in sites, and which the casual user would probably never otherwise find. The directory also indicates how current information is and other 'notable features' such as the use of non-html formats. Eric provided a range of interesting and valuable examples of the sites covered in the directory and his talk provoked many positive questions and comments.
As a former member of the CLIG committee, I know the hard work that goes
into organising their events. This seminar was a fine example of how good
organisation and an interesting topic can combine to produce something
which is not only very useful professionally but also highly enjoyable.
Many thanks to CLIG committee members Edward Ebden and Claire Fox for
their efforts, and thanks also to Butterworths for hosting the event.
Andrew Horne is Information
Officer at Eversheds