The European Documentation Centre

What is the European Documentation Centre (EDC)?

Durham University Library’s European Documentation Centre is part of the information network established by the European Commission. It has two main responsibilities: • To support Durham University’s teaching and research on European Union (EU) matters. • To give access to essential EU legislation to the local community. In order to fulfil these responsibilities, the institutions of the European Union supply the EDC with their official publications and it enjoys privileged access to EU databases.

What does the EDC contain? Durham’s EDC, founded in 1969, has had ‘Comprehensive EDC’ status since 1995. It covers the full range of official publications of the European Union. These include: • Legislation – full texts of all directives, regulations and treaties and any subsequent amendments. • Proposed legislation – all stages of EU legislation, from the Commission’s initial COM (Commission) document to the final approval by the Council of Ministers, and all stages of consultation in between. • Background information – on all aspects of EU affairs. • Statistics – from the European Union’s statistical agency EUROSTAT, covering population, economic affairs, social affairs, education, agriculture and more. • Bibliographic support – a range of indexes and reference tools.

How is the collection arranged? Documents in the EDC are shelved in lettered shelfmark sequences as follows: E/B/ Bibliographies (mostly series) arranged alphabetically by title. E/I/ Information about EU activities, arranged alphabetically by title. E/AR Annual Reports, arranged alphabetically by issuing body or title. E/L/ Legislation, arranged by series. This includes the Official Journal of the European Communities, COM documents and European Parliament documents.

E/S/ Statistical publications from EUROSTAT, arranged alphabetically by title. E/M/ Miscellaneous reports, studies and other EU publications, arranged alphabetically by subject covered.

How do I trace EU documents? All printed EDC documents appear in the Library’s catalogue. Some of the other resources that exist to help users find EU documents are: • A card catalogue containing a subject index to European publications (useful for tracing documents in the COM documents series). • Key journals of EU affairs, including Bulletin of the European Union and The Week in Europe – available in the collection. • European Communities Legislation: current status – the complete guide to EU legislation in force. • EUR-Lex – the EU’s law portal, available at http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/

Are European Documents available online? The European Union is increasingly publishing online rather than in paper form. European Union web sites and the information they contain should be used in conjunction with the printed resources of the EDC. Links to EU sites are available at http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/subject/eurolink.htm

How do I get access to the EDC? The EDC is situated on Level 2 of the Main University Library and is available to all members of the University and to the public throughout library opening hours, although only library members may borrow documents, usually for a week at a time. Staff at the enquiry desk on Level 2 can answer general queries about the collection and specialist staff are available 09.00 to 17.00 Monday to Friday, to answer more difficult queries.

For more details, please see our web pages: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/edc/edc.htm

August 2005

This leaflet is also available in alternative formats on request