n° 31 - Nov. 2010 - 1 • Editorial • Utrecht conference • News • An Elisad member: SIIS, Madrid • A new member: Drugtext Foundation • Publications • OnlineDocs Editorial • Agenda HE AUTUMN has really come to my part of Europe with dark and misty nights. I still remember the nice and warm last day in Utrecht, when some of us took the wal- Tking tour in the beautiful ancient parts of the city. The guide was very enthusiastic Our next of her hometown and described lively all the monuments in the city centre. She specially annual conference is pointed out one of the local coffee shops and described little about their existence in planned 6-8 October 2011 society. at the French Monitoring Centre on Drugs & Drug Anyway I am glad that I bought myself a generous piece of well ripened Reypenaer Addiction (OFDT) cheese to bring home. Even though there is a Dutch cheese shop in my part of the city cen- Paris tre of Stockholm. Quite international so far up in the north of Europe, is n't it? This is my first editorial text as the new Chair of Elisad. First of all I want to make some reflections on our languages. I feel pleased to use English as the lingua franca among us in Elisad, some of you may have heard me mention “broken English”. That is what we all have in common and I want to emphasize that no one should excuse for their bad English. It is a charming bit of Elisad networking that we do understand each other so well! And please forgive me if my English is not so perfect at all times (English prepositions - damned!). In this issue of our journal you will find Christine Goodair's report on our Annual Conference in Utrecht. I found it very positive and inspiring, even if we discussed nega- tive topics like the economic crisis in Europe. There is also an article about one of our Spanish members - SIIS - based in both Donostia (San Sebastián) and Madrid. As usual you will also find announcements for new books and online documents. This part of the journal is very useful for me personally as it is a good tool when I buy books for my library. I hope it is useful for all of you. Finally, I am very glad to be your new Chair! On behalf of both old and new Board members (Isabelle Michot and Fiorenzo Ranieri - welcome to the Board!) I will assure you that we will do our very best for Elisad in the coming year. Claes Olsson The walking tour in Elisad Chair the beautiful ancient parts of Utrecht n° 31 - Nov. 2010 - 2 EEuurrooppeeaann AATTOODD lliibbrraarriieess iinn cchhaalllleennggiinngg eeccoonnoommiicc ttiimmeess • Editorial nd • Utrecht conference 22 Elisad annual meeting • News 7-9 October 2009 - Utrecht • An Elisad member: SIIS, Madrid • A new member: Christine Goodair, Drugtext Foundation Immediate past President • Publications and Chair of Elisad • OnlineDocs • Agenda Our 22nd annual conference was well attended this year with over 50% of our members there, which was excellent, given the difficult economic times. The conference was opened by Patricia Geradts, Trimbos Director, who made us feel very welcome. She described the work of the Trimbos as a know- ledge institute in mental health and addictions focussing on the application of research and evidence to practice. The Trimbos library has been transformed to support a knowledge organisation by beco- ming a meeting place for knowledge sharing, providing news services and on line newsletters such as Trimbos Quarterly which has 15,000 subscribers. HE FIRST SPEAKER was Toine them down. Since 2004 there has government had hoped, mainly Ketelaars, researcher at the been much activity to discourage because the patients found that the TTrimbos, who gave an over- cannabis use and also restrictions on medical cannabis they were being view of Dutch Drugs Policy. He set cannabis farms and over 5000 have prescribed was not as effective as the scene by describing the core ele- been dismantled by the police. The the cannabis they had been growing ments of Dutch drug policy as being public nuisance factor has proved for their medicinal purposes. about the protection of individual, more difficult to manage but there Another typical part of the Dutch Patricia Geradts, Trimbos Director community, environment and has been some success in the sepa- drug policy is the medical heroin and below, Toine Ketelaars, society through the prevention of ration of markets for cannabis and prescription and again a random Trimbos researcher drug use and the provision of treat- for hard drugs since the police have ment and rehabilitation of drug found no evidence of hard drugs in users before focussing on the deve- coffee-shops. The new government lopments in Dutch cannabis policy of 2010 are now looking to close from 1976 to the present day focusing coffee-shops or make them availa- on the tolerated and well known ble to members only. Dutch coffee- shop system. Over time this aspect of Dutch drugs Since 2001 the Office of Medicinal policy has been changing and Toine Cannabis has been tasked to find talked about the more recent attempts ways of producing pharmaceutical to curtail foreign 'drug tourists' from cannabis for use in clinical research the coffee- shops and the increasing and for patients with certain chronic concerns about the production of illnesses such as cancer, multiple cannabis by criminal organisations. sclerosis and AIDS. A controlled trial Initiatives to regulate coffee-shops of this medical cannabis was under- have been brought in and they have taken with patients but it was inte- to be licensed by local authorities, resting to learn that the trial has not who also have the power to close been as successful as the Dutch n° 31 - Nov. 2010 - 3 controlled trail of prescribed heroin Rene Dales the Regional Sales This was followed by Serena Panero and methadone users versus metha- Manager for EBSCO Benelux gave and Daniela Zardo, Gruppo Abele done alone users was set up in 1998. us a tour of the various databases who as keynote speakers shared It found that those taking prescribed that they host and provide seamless their experiences of managing in heroin and methadone were functio- access to with many useful tools difficult times and how the strategies ning better than the methadone only such as the search builder box, and they have developed. Their talk was group. There are 715 treatment pla- next generation federated search. aptly called Sailing rough waters: ces in 17 units across the 15 munici- He also described the subscription staying on course. • Editorial palities of Holland. management, online journals and other services provided. Of interest They opened their presentation by • Utrecht conference To sum up the changes in drug policy to all was the budgeting trends sur- giving a brief history of addiction • News have brought about a stricter canna- vey and social media in libraries information centres in Italy. Except bis policy, separated the markets for survey undertaken by EBSCO. for the documentation centres of • An Elisad member: soft and hard drugs, and enabled Gruppo Abele and Unicri, both SIIS, Madrid cannabis and heroin treatments. Having heard about the loss of located in Turin, most of Italian • A new member: libraries it was pleasing to hear the documentation centres on addictions Having had the scene set on the Drugtext Foundation Isabelle Michot, Documentalist, were founded in the early nineties host's drug policy and situation the Observatoire français des drogues et with monies from the National Fund • Publications conference theme of libraries in des toxicomanies (OFDT French for the fight against drugs and are • OnlineDocs challenging economic times was Monitoring centre for drugs & drug small centres within local Health • Agenda starkly set out by Mario Lap, addiction) describe the new online and Addiction Services. The current Director Drugtext Foundation, database of the OFDT. This new crisis has produced a reduction in www.drugtext.org/ talked about his bibliographic database has been funds and the effect is a reduction in new Drugtext project, Libraries online since July 30th, 2010 and is staff and expenses for training and under threat, an emergency plan. available from the homepage of documentation. Drugtext began in 1995 in order to OFDT's website www.ofdt.fr. This disseminate and produce digital new tool, implemented with the However, the presentation focused information on substance use, harm open source software PMB, includes on Gruppo Abele's Documentation reduction and drug policies but the OFDT's own database (11,000 and Research Centre, the oldest in more recently their work is focusing references), the Toxibase database Italy, and part of the well-known on saving key and seminal drug (36,000 references, managed until non profit NGO Gruppo Abele esta- documents from the most important 2006 by the French network of blished in 1966 by a group of young conventional European libraries and documentation centres) and a unique people. The Association - the first documentation centres that are now collection of French law texts with one in Italy - began life by assisting either closed, inaccessible, or are full access to the legislative documents. drug abusers at a time when the law under threat. Mario described the The main topics covered by the docu- only provided for incarceration or emergency plan he has created with ments described in this database are psychiatric treatment. others to save the contents of these mostly ATOD effects, use and conse- Consequently, Gruppo Abele led the libraries by digitalizing a core set of quences, public health policies, drug reports, books and other materials movement demanding a new drug markets, harm reduction, but also law to enable better access to help determined by a peer review of treatment and prevention.