Minor changes at EUR-Lex, September 2003

Regular users of EUR-Lex will have noticed a number of small changes recently though we have yet to see the major changes to EUR-Lex and CELEX forecast for the Autumn. The alterations to the font and spacing of the EUR-Lex template have been planned for some time and relate to WAI compliance. This development has just managed to scrape in before the end of the current European Year for People with Disabilities. The font changes are only superficial however and do not affect the full content, simply the screen template. In addition to the seven domains along the top menu bar, the button 'Preparing enlargement' has also been added to provide direct access to the texts of documents in the accession countries' languages.

The removal this week of the link to the chronological list of Official Journal issues brought a swift reaction from users with pleas to reinstate it. The presentation of the recent available issues harks back to the time when only the last 45 days of the OJ were available free of charge. Now the whole content of EUR-Lex is freely available and each issue of the Official Journal L and C series can be displayed in pdf format from 1998. Nevertheless the chronological list was still a quick and easy way to access the latest issues and was well used instead of an issue number search. Lobby power however does has some effect. Early in the week, clicking on the Official Journal link on the site brought up only a hyperlink to the Supplement to the OJ. Now the link at this level to the Chronological list is back though it takes users just to the 45 day calendar and a link to 'Previous issues'. At the next level the link is still broken as the chronological list page has been removed but the archives are complete and can be reached from here via the 'Previous issues' link so users are not left floundering as they initially were.