I've arrived late in this discussion because I have been
away but I share everyone's concern at the way the
Commission has dealt with this in such an arbitrary way. I
share this message with eurotalk because I have discovered
that the Euro Info Centres are in the same position as EDCs
At Exeter we have always had an extra subscription to the
OJ so that we can bind one set and keep one set unbound for
ease of photocopying (and also cover the inevitable gaps
resulting from having journals on open access) so, while we
will no longer have this luxury, we at least don't have to
identify extra money.
I feel that the Commission doesn't understand the way in
which the OJ is used by its customers, nor does it
recognise the extent to which large sections of the
community are being disenfranchised by reliance on
electronic media. As has already been pointed out EUR-LEX
is often extremely slow and is still hardly user-friendly:
printing out chunks of the OJ is time consuming and
depends on ready access to a printer. CD-ROM versions of
other publications have already been shown to be difficult
or impossible to network and demand yet another raft of
skills for us to acquire.
I shall be in Brussels next week and will attempt to
buttonhole Neville Keery to express our concerns at this
sudden change of policy.
Best wishes
----------------------
Patrick Overy
EDC Librarian
University of Exeter
Amory Building
Rennes Drive
EXETER EX4 4RJ
Tel. (01392) 263356
Fax. (01392) 263196
e-mail [log in to unmask]
website http://www.ex.ac.uk/~pcovery/lib/eurostudies.html
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