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EUROPEAN COMMISSION Education and Culture

Central Library Activity Report

1999 Rapport 20 pp EN 9/06/00 14:57 Page 2

CONTENT

Foreword

1.Highlights: Creation of a Documentation Centre Unit

2.The European Commission's Central Library in 1999 - library activities - services to readers - data processing

3.European Documentation Centres (EDC)

4.SCADPlus

5.Programme and outlook for 2000

Annexes - Annexe 1: Mission statement - Documentation Centre Unit - Annexe 2: Main staff responsibilities - Documentation Centre Unit - Annexe 3: Resource fact sheet - Documentation Centre Unit - Annexe 4: Budget resources 1993-2000 - Central Library - Annexe 5: Cataloguing - language distribution 1999

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FOREWORD

Without doubt 1999 was a year of great changes for the European Commission : twenty new Commissioners took up their posts in the institution under the authority of President Romano Prodi.

The Central Library of the European Commission is now under the authority of Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is responsible for Education and Culture.

I became Director General for Education and Culture on 1st January 2000, and therefore am privileged to write this introduction.

The citizen is at the heart of the new Commission policy, particularly in the fields of educa- tion, training, respect for culture and language, and access to knowledge generally.

It is vital to encourage the development of libraries and the dissemination of information for use by the discerning citizen. Indeed the fundamentals of democracy based on freedom of expression depend on citizen access to these knowledge tools.

Libraries are " significant sources of memory, pathways to knowledge, signals of the impor- tance of culture, and areas where the community gathers in a symbolic sense ".1

The Central Library of the Commission has been steadily evolving for many years. It is working in partnership with other libraries, with internal networks and also networks outside its insti- tutional authority.

Its collections make use of databases, its catalogue is available on the Internet, and it makes use of electronic means of communication, research and consultation.

Today, at this stage of its development, it seems appropriate for me to reflect on the long-term future of the Library from the point of view of the closer relationship of the Union with the European citizen, seeking to give the Library the means to become an even more powerful tool for dissemination of information.

In order to achieve this aim, the Directorate-General will focus its efforts on drafting this year a Commission project communication proposing a " virtual inter-institutional research library ". I am convinced that closer collaboration between EU institutions will allow readers to have a wider access to Community documentation.

I hope that in the Introduction to the Central Library Activity Report for 2000 I can report on a positive outcome to this effort.

Nikolaus G. van der Pas Director-General May 2000.

1 Bibliothèques, Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, Paris, 1997. Ouvrage et volumes, Anne-Marie Bertrand et Anne Kupiec, Collection..

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HIGHLIGHTS

There were many changes in 1999. On the political on the Unit’s Libraries’ site in 1999. and administrative level, the Commission led by President Prodi took over from the Commission of Numerous projects were completed. Contracts were President Santer. In the domain of documentation, established after two calls for tender, one for binding the SCADPlus team joined the Central Library and work and one for subscriptions to newspapers. European Documentation Centres (EDC) to create a Documentation Centre within the Directorate General In December 1999 a new project was launched. It for Education and Culture (EAC-D-3). initiates the first phase in the computerisation of periodicals in the Library collection. The computerised informatics systems achieved transi- tion to the year 2000 without serious difficulties for the The Luxembourg library team completed their move MultiLIS library management software or for the online from the Jean Monnet building to the Joseph Bech catalogue ECLAS. There were also benefits in 1999 from building in September 1999. additional research capacity and access to information. SCADPlus enhanced its presence on the Europa inter- European Documentation Centres launched a web site net server in 1999.

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AN OVERVIEW OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S CENTRAL LIBRARY IN 1999

• Library activities

The Central Library in Brussels made 7,286 acquisi- Commission on libraries, on budgetary and personnel tions in 1999, covering the purchase of monographs, questions, on the future development of the manage- CD-ROMs and standing orders, as well as the receipt ment software MultiLIS, and on the effectiveness of of gifts or exchanges. This amount is slightly greater the ECLAS database which is accessible on the than that for 1998 (6,857) and is close to the Internet. amount for 1997 (7,479). It is an indication of a cer- tain stabilisation in the number of acquisitions, tak- In this context of interdepartmental co-operation, the ing into account the budgetary resources of the Central Library organised 10 training sessions for net- Library. work members in 1999 covering the use of MultiLIS software for cataloguing, indexing, loan management, 128 newspaper titles representing 1,367 subscrip- purchases, periodicals, serial publications and local tions were ordered at the beginning of 1999 (com- lists. pared with 135 titles representing 1,017 subscrip- tions in 1998) and 2,019 specialist periodical titles, The Central Library held the Presidency and provided representing 3,199 subscriptions were added. The the secretariat functions for EUROLIB , the group of Library’s first contracts for suppliers of newspaper European Institution or associated libraries. The XVth subscriptions entered into force on 1 January 2000. General Assembly of EUROLIB was held on 26 and By tender procedure, the Library chose five suppliers 27 April 1999 at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. of newspapers. The newspapers are for use by all the An interim working meeting was held on 21 and 22 Commission departments in Brussels. October 1999 in Luxembourg at the headquarters of Eurocontrol, the Institute of Air Navigation Services. The Luxembourg library handled approximately 700 Again in 1999 members exchanged experiences and purchase orders during the year and 950 subscrip- worked on projects affecting the administration of tions and standing orders. libraries. This year the accent was placed particularly on the development of interactive services and the The MultiLIS software, used for managing the collec- Libraries site presenting a EUROLIB Internet page on tions, enabled 193,825 entries to be processed (all the EUROPA website. modules together) during 1999 for the entire RESEAUBIB inter-library network. The Central Library participated in various external events, among which were the Annual Congress of Central Library librarians alone created 15,877 new users of DRA-MultiLIS which was held from 28 entries in 1999, 11,403 of which were carried out by February to 3 March 1999 in Saint Louis (U.S.A.), the Brussels and Luxembourg libraries and 4,474 by the General Assembly of the users of the DRA-Multi- the libraries of other Directorates-General. LIS in Europe which took place from 23 March to 2 December 1999, the meeting of US depository A breakdown of all the entries by language is pre- libraries which was held in Pittsburg from 2 to 5 June sented in annex 5. 1999, and the Publishers’ Forum held at the Book Fair in Frankfort from 14 to 16 October 1999. RESEAUBIB, the network of libraries and/or documen- tation centres of DGs and Commission services, now During the year 1999, Mr. Stephen Wiles, a librarian has more than 25 members. The General Assembly of from the Documentation Centre of Harvard Law RESEAUBIB was held on 1 December 1999 in School (U.S.A.) visited the Library for a period of Brussels. The discussion concentrated on the effect of work and exchange of experiences, especially in the the ongoing administrative reorganisation of the fields of electronic access and online periodicals.

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Mrs Qian Xiao Ping, Librarian at the Institute of 40,055 works were taken out of storage for consulta- European Studies of the University of Social Sciences tion at the library in 1999. of Peking, began a six month study course in the Central Library in December 1999. Her main interest 240,262 free photocopies were made for internal is the ECLAS thesaurus. readers in 1999.

These figures, when compared to those for preceding • Services to readers years, show two tendencies. First, a steady decrease in the number of visitors, internal and external, to the The main purpose of the Central Library of the library premises at the Commission; secondly, a pro- European Commission in Brussels and in Luxembourg gressive increase in distance contacts. is to offer its services to the officials of the institu- tions. They are not open to the public and only give These tendencies, which are seen in other libraries, access to a limited number of external readers match- are the result of a steady improvement in the quality ing certain criteria. of information communication systems (the world- wide web) and of their increasing use by the reading In 1999, the readers card office of the Brussels public. It must be said also that the reader accommo- Library issued 851 access authorisations to outside dation offered in the current Commission Central readers, 313 of which were given to students, 242 library premises in Brussels is not very attractive. were for post-graduate level students from 82 univer- sities and grandes écoles in the European Union, and Regarding the management of inter-library loans, 630 538 were given to readers representing the liberal pro- requests were made to outside libraries for loans: 495 fessions, professors, national civil servants and so on. by the Central Library in Brussels, and 135 by the 1,956 authorisations for one day visits were handed RESEAUBIB libraries. Of the 495 requests made by out. Thirteen group visits were organised in 1999. the Central Library in Brussels, 250 were made through the Impala system and 183 through other In 1999, 29,350 readers used the Brussels Library's sources; 433 requests were fulfilled. main reading room and 4,650 visited the catalogue room. During 1999, the Central Library in Brussels received 180 requests for loans, and it was able to provide a 15,033 items of bibliographical information were positive response to 151 of them. provided in the reading room and 6,350 in the cata- logue room. The figures for inter-library loan requests are steadily increasing. This is the result of the increasing use of 14,874 items of information were given by telephone the Internet by external readers who have no other from the reading room and 23,260 from the cata- source from which to obtain the loans they require. logue room. The Central Library publishes a BIBLIO information The fax was used 3,050 times from the reading room series. 2,400 copies of each of the issues 1 to 4 of and 1,050 times from the catalogue room. BIBLIO-Europe, BIBLIO-Country Reports and BIBLIO- East, respectively, (devoted to the activities of the Replies to inquiries by electronic mail totalled 5,766 European Union, to specific countries and to Eastern in the reading room and 2,850 in the catalogue room. Europe), were published.

During 1999, the Brussels Library made 5,738 loans Since December 1999, the Library has been able to to readers. offer an electronic version of the complete BIBLIO

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series (including a BIBLIO-Flash) on the European bility of combining previous searches, of generating a Commission Intranet (which is only available for use research profile which is responded to automatically by its personnel). This form of selective distribution on a regular basis, and of the chance to access of information gives a link with the index or the inte- directly to new acquisitions. gral text of the periodical articles selected. The BIB- LIO-Flash series offers a condensed selection of texts The documentary base ECLAS was also improved by summarising the documentation available on a cer- numerous links to indexes and /or the integral text of tain subject. articles from periodicals. It continued to accumulate references to web sites. The Central Library in Luxembourg received 14,000 visitors in 1999, and carried out approximately 350 The Libraries site, co-ordinated by the Central searches per month, i.e. an annual total of 3,100 Library, was completed in 1999 with pages concern- searches. 75,500 free photocopies were produced ing the network of European Documentation Centres. for readers and 800 inter-library loans were made. The library closed from June to September to facili- The MultiLIS online management system, version tate its move to a new building. 11.1, used by the Library for the administration of its bibliographic notices, was able to make the changeover to the year 2000 by using an adaptation • Data processing programme.

The statistics for the consultation of the ECLAS cata- The supplier of MultiLIS was given the task of intro- logue on the Internet server EUROPA for 1999 are ducing the periodical collections of the Library into very encouraging. The database was singled out by the existent database at the end of December 1999. the European Information Association for the wealth This project will be carried out in two phases: firstly, of its content and its user-friendly research methods. by introducing the current collections (from July In its form ECLASPro the ECLAS system offers in 2000 until July 2001); secondly, by introducing the addition to a standard research procedure, the possi- historic collection.

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EUROPEAN DOCUMENTATION CENTRES (EDC)

The preparation of a Vade Mecum to explain the The training of EDC staff is essential for the effi- duties and obligations of the European ciency of the network. A seminar on basic training to Documentation Centres and Depository Libraries improve transnational co-operation inside the network (EDC/DEP) began in 1999. was organised as well as a complementary seminar to encourage, stimulate and support experienced EDC An EDC evaluation exercise was continued. staff in their important role as suppliers of high qual- ity information about the Community. After visits made to EDCs which had not signed a Convention with the Commission an analysis of the Grants for an amount of 2,000 euros were made situation was presented and conclusions were drawn. available to thirty European Documentation Centres to allow them access to the Europa server on the Activity reports and questionnaires were sent to EDCs Internet. situated in the Member States and a preliminary report was made on the basis of a first analysis of the The distribution of up-dates for a Eurostat CD-ROM questionnaire. to all EDCs was funded. The development of a web site on the Libraries page was launched, including A study of the EDC situation in third countries was made the up-dating of the entries covering the members of and decisions concerning applicant states were proposed. the EDC network.

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SCADPlus

The continuation of the work under way improved established with the Health and Consumer Protection SCADPlus.The range of information covered was Directorate General. The new heading Agenda 2000 greatly enlarged. This increase was partly due to the gave the possibility of creating links with the DGs for creation of a new linked site DIALOGUE WITH CITI- Agriculture, Fisheries, the Regions and the Budget. ZENS, the result of an important synergy between SCADPlus and the Citizens First site, for which the Internal Market DG is responsible, together with a Most of the SCADPlus chapter concerning references practical Guide to the free circulation of persons. to freedom, security and justice has been completed. A permanent index of various acts has been estab- Visibility within the Europa web site was also lished. Regular collaboration has been established improved. However, this is a long-term project, which with the Commission of civil liberties of the European requires some participatory feedback. There is a need Parliament. For the Tampere summit of the Finnish to continue and improve promotional publicity. Presidency the maximum amount of information was made available. The concept of SCADPlus is also evolving. The exist- ing basis of synthesising and regrouping information, Special mention should be made of the SCAD base, together with keeping up to date on current events, a (which now holds more than 20,000 new references, plurivalent methodology, was enhanced by the addi- most of which relate to the integral texts held in more tion of two supplementary elements: first, systematic detailed databases). A transfer to new software, links to key databases (complete texts), and secondly, DORIS, greatly improved the service to the user, by efforts to promote and develop the effects of thanks to a more user-friendly and more pertinent SCADPlus by improving perception of it as a commu- consultation system, following integration with the nication tool. multilingual interinstitutional thesaurus EUROVOC covering eleven languages. The network of relationships with most of the Commission services has been improved. Each refer- Completion of the online user survey launched in ence introduced into SCADPlus is checked by the October 1999 should be mentioned. This will help to responsible service. In addition to the synergy with improve understanding of user profile and satisfac- Citizens First, a new departure was the collaboration tion. The commentaries and suggestions should lead with the Employment Directorate General (EURES), to improved services. The high number of replies in the context of the free circulation of workers and (1173 in under a month) gives a good idea of how their families. Extended complementarities have been much SCADPlus responds to the needs of users.

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PROGRAMME AND OUTLOOK FOR 2000

A priority for the year 2000 will be efforts towards the version of MultiLIS, the management software. creation of a Brussels library administered by the EU institutions and equipped with the resources neces- The Library supports initiatives being taken by the sary to improve its accessibility. Collections and Commission to ensure the storage of sites or elec- informatics infrastructure are important. tronic pages from the EUROPA Internet server which, for legal or historical interest reasons, should be To move towards this, the Library will step up work on archived. its webpages. Development of the Libraries site is awaited, notably concerning the EUROLIB and EDC Electronic archiving is also one of the major projects pages which should be improved and developed. being studied by EUROLIB members.

Concerning the ECLAS base, a German version of During the year 2000, progressively more emphasis research screens is under construction. The use of will be placed on a closer relationship between the links with Internet sites permitting access to articles services offered by the SCADPlus database and the from periodicals will be increased. services offered by the Central Library and the EDCs.

During the year 2000 the collections of periodicals in the Library will be prepared for database treat- ment. This will also prepare for passage to the 11.2

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Annexes

1 MISSION STATEMENT - DOCUMENTATION CENTRE UNIT

Through the Commission's Central Library and networking with other libraries and documentation centres, to offer researchers quality library services based on broad collections and electronic management:

- making available to the Commission and its staff useful information published either in paper format or electronic format;

- responding cost-effectively to requests for documents and offering interactive electronic library services allowing users to have access to information and/or to identify information sources without having to call upon expert assistance and without prior training;

- developing co-operation and partnerships between libraries both inside and outside the Commission.

The Unit Documentation Centre will also seek to extend its dialogue with the documentalists and librarians of the European Documentation Centre network and the world of libraries so that the European Commission's policy of openness is implemented with a dynamism designed to promote and develop public access to European documentation. It will seek to bring added value to all its activities, particularly by seeking synergies including SCADPlus, other databases, and the relationship with EUROPA and EUROPE DIRECT.

2 MAIN STAFF RESPONSIBILITIES - DOCUMENTATION CENTRE UNIT

Neville KEERY Head of Unit Roland LAURENT Deputy Head of Unit Isabel LOFF Coordinator, European Documentation Centres Horst WOHLFEIL Librarian in charge, Luxembourg

3 RESOURCE FACT SHEET - DOCUMENTATION CENTRE UNIT

Staff resources of the Documentation Centre unit (1.3.2000)

Bruxelles > A: 4; LA (seconded): 1 ;B: 17; C: 29+1 vacant; D: 6 Luxembourg > A: 0; B: 2; C: 9; D: 2

Collection/accommodation resources of the Central Library (1.3.2000) Bruxelles > 1 reading room (62 places) displaying around 3 000 reference works and current periodicals; > 1 catalogue room permitting consultation of databases; > some 422 000 volumes; > 4 bookstore areas underground (1,625 m2) and an offsite store (rue Vandenbranden: around 2 500 m2); > 1 local CD-ROM network Luxembourg > 1 reading room (28 places) containing 2 500 reference works; > 1 catalogue room permitting consultation of data bases; > 4 bookstores areas (860 m2) containing some 90 000 volumes

Sites internet ECLAS http://europa.eu.int/eclas/ Libraries http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/ CDE http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/edc/index_en.htm EUROLIB http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/eurolib/eurolib_en.htm SCADPlus http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/

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Annexes

4 BUDGET RESOURCES 1993-2000 OF THE CENTRAL LIBRARY (EUR THOUSAND)

1993 1994 19951 19962 19973 19984 1999 2000 A-2250 Purchase of books 570 544 669 700 560 557 560 7495

A-2252 Subscriptions 1.214 1.097 1.426 1.400 1.544 - - - to newspapers and periodicals

A-2253 Subscriptions 450 450 514 540 - - - - to press agencies

A-2254 Binding 168 159 179 180 176 139 140 -

A-2255 Subscriptions to 99 105 B.4 110 1.345 1.745 3.218 3.300 EAC-D-3: 1.5406 and purchases B.8 1.080 ADMIN: 1.725 of data 2 (+ copyright): 200

1 Item A-2255 combined X.B.4 and X.B.8 online data purchasing budgets.

2 Item A-2255 was managed jointly with X.B.8.

3 Items A-2252 and A-2253 have been amended to comply with the changes in electronic media.

4 Item A-2255 has incorporated Items A-2252 and A-2253 since 1998.

5 Item A-2250 includes the binding since 2000.

6 Item A-2255 is managed jointly with DG ADMIN.

5 CATALOGUING - LANGUAGE DISTRIBUTION 1999

Cataloguing - Language distribution 1999

LANGUAGES % DA 3,68 DE 12,89 EL 0,65 EN 50,78 ES 5,68 FI 1,47 FR 25,62 IT 5,57 NL 3,29 PT 1,80 SV 1,64 Others 2,94

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European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture Rue de la Loi, 200 B-1049 Bruxelles

© European Communities, 2000 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged

EUROPA http://europa.eu.int

ECLAS http://europa.eu.int/eclas/

Libraries http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/

CDE http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/edc/index_en.htm

EUROLIB http://europa.eu.int/comm/libraries/eurolib/eurolib_en.ht m

SCADPlus http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/

This report is available in English and French. It is published by the Central Library of the European Commission (Directorate-General for Education and Culture).

For further information contact: Central Library of the European Commission, JECL 1/38, Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200, B-1049 Bruxelles/Brussel Fax: (32-02)296.11.49 or 295.68.26 [email protected]