European Union Information Directory on CD‐ROM

The European Union Information Directory, produced and updated by the European Business Centre at Plymouth College, and developed and marketed by Rank Xerox, aims to provide an authoritative source of contacts within European administration and to take “the headache ‐ and the paperwork ‐ out of doing business in Europe”.

Prior to the launch, a Harris survey, commissioned by the publishers, had found that only 53 per cent of British companies do business with other European companies of which only 17 per cent had ever tendered for an EU contract, suggesting a loss to British business of over £400 billion. Based on official EU and national documentation, the Directory implicitly aims to help redress this problem.

Its user‐friendliness was striking from the start, being the easiest CD‐ROM which I have loaded to date. You are presented with an uncomplicated first contents menu of “Country information”, “General information”and videos (28 titles) with a map for optional direct access to national material. For each country of the EU the “Country information” subdivides into five broad groups: statistical information; ministries; chambers of commerce; trade unions; and information providers. Alternatively, as is now standard , you can search for the subject of your choice in all or selected topic groups. However, considering that the publisher’s sales emphasis was placed upon securing business contracts, the total result of my first search for “tenders” in all topic groups proved rather disappointing. Apart from being directed to I’m Europe, with a brief summary, telephone and fax numbers, and e‐mail and Internet addresses of the online service, the Official Journal (but not the S series) is only mentioned by way of the ESPRIT IT Programme, and you are simply directed to the Plymouth European Business Centre for further information in the UK, as if this were the only British information provider! Is this possibly a subtle way of using the publication to market its own services in the face of its competitors? For those of us who do not work in the environs of Plymouth it would have been more helpful to have had a cross‐reference here at least to the listing of regional Euro‐Info‐Centres in the various countries, easily accessible via the “Countries” and “Information providers” menus. Finally for “tenders” you are directed to the heading TED, Tenders Electronic Daily in the “Glossary” but with no further direction for access to this most important of databases.

On a more positive note, the Directory does contain a wealth of information on matters European. Some of the data corresponds to that found in standard printed quick reference works, but other facts, such as VAT rates, time zones, school holidays in the various Member States, telephone codes and numbers of their emergency services are not so readily found together in one source. Also brought together are multifarious information providers in each country with a European concern. Fifty networks are listed for the UK alone, from Euro‐Info‐Centres, the UK Centre for European Education to a listing of ten databases with descriptions and contact points, but, surprisingly, not Tenders Electronic Daily! Another noticeable omission in the “Information providers”, is the European Information Association which, with its now international membership, has done more in the 1990s to facilitate access to EU information generally than any other single organisation.

In the online preface to the Directory, the President of the European Parliament states: “Good government rests on an informed electorate… I welcome the fact that it [the Directory] goes far outside the narrow world of politics to embrace business, education, and diplomatic sources. Europe is more than politics; Europe is our daily lives and will be our children’s daily lives.” Certainly, as a general reference work in public and academic libraries it is an attractive wide‐ranging multi‐media source which, although primarily a directory, also provides some brief full text information on, for example, the institutions, the new procedures after Maastricht, of the European Parliament, the various objectives of the European Regional Development Fund and very much more. In business information centres there would probably be some overlap of information with materials already held, but the Directory could nevertheless prove a handy “one‐stop” quick reference tool at a reasonable cost. Whether, as it is presently structured, it would substantially aid single businesses in tendering for contracts, however, is questionable.