Developments in European information issues: Networks and relays – Services – Products, February 1999

Official Journal of the European Communities EUR-Lex CD ROM

A new hybrid CD ROM/Internet subscription to the OJ L & C series based on the EUR-Lex system is being launched in 1999. It aims to allow access to PDF files of the OJ both on the CD ROM and through the EUR-Lex Internet site. It will be published monthly so the first real issue will be available some time in mid-February. Ademonstration version dated October 1998 is currently out but does not offer all features so it is perhaps unfair to comment at this stage. Advance publicity states that it will be possible to search for any text published in 1999 to date whether it is on the CD ROM or on the Internet site. As the search function is one of the areas on the trial CD ROM that is still under development, along with the site map and help facilities, it is not possible to test the search engine. One feature that does work is the direct link from the CD ROM to the EUR-Lex site. It is intended that the product will have twelve cumulating issues with a final thirteenth annual issue once all texts for the year have been published. As EUR-Lex itself is to move from offering the last twenty days of the OJ L & C series free of charge to the last forty five days, the combination of that and the new hybrid CD ROM will give access to all the latest issues of the OJ. EUR-OP is keen to encourage subscribers to move from paper subscriptions to electronic ones and to that end the CD ROM is to be sold at the very competitve rate of 144 euros + VAT, considerably less than the straight quarterly CD ROM version of the OJ which claims to offer more sophisticated search functions. However, as the long promised quarterly CD ROM has not yet appeared (now due in April 1999) and the search facilities on the new hybrid disk remain an unknown quantity, subscribers are unlikely to rush to commit themselves.