SaraAnn Kelly wrote:
question: The European Union supports economic and industrial activity
within the community through grants, loans, help for SMEs and various
other initiatives. How can I assess it's efficiency?
This may be a sensible question in some ways, but it's also a huge
one. It reminds me of the sort of impossible task our students are
often given. The first step woould be to look at the stated
objectives of the various grant and loan schemes operated by the EU:
this would establish the criteria for assessing effectiveness
(though this may not be the same thing as efficiency - the enquirer
needs to define his/her terms). In order to do so, however, it would
probably be necessary to assemble a large amount of data from diverse
sources and it would, I suspect, be difficult and complex.
To put it another way, this is not as it stands a question for a
librarian! Your user needs to think quite hard about what the
question means and what would be involved in answering it - and then
maybe come back with a more focussed request for information.
Ian Mayfield
Environmental Studies Librarian
European Documentation Centre Librarian
Tel. 01705 843239
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