Free on the EU. A guide to free sources of information about and from the European Union. 2nd ed.

Free on the EU. A guide to free sources of information about and from the European Union. 2nd ed.:

In this second edition of the guide to free sources of information, the author acknowledges the difficulty in claiming to be comprehensive, because of the huge amount of information available, particularly given the explosion of information available across the Internet. Instead, he concentrates on providing a list of practical tools that can be accessed easily at comparatively little cost. The second edition aims to be less UK centred, in particular by including free publications available from the Commission Representatives, European Parliament contacts and Euro Info points in all Member States.

The book begins with a list of background guides and bibliographic tools, some of which are priced but included because of their usefulness for providing basic information, and up to date news on information sources. The second section looks at free sources available from the European Union Institutions themselves, and includes a brief description of the kind of information available from each Institution. The third lists sources from the UK Government, again giving the reader an idea of what is available and how helpful particular departments are likely to be. The fourth section, on free electronic information cannot, because of the size of the sites, list many individual addresses. Instead, it concentrates on the home page of the Europa server and describes what is available, together with some addresses for sections on News, factual and historical information, policies and institutions. It also lists the main bibliographic and news sources, such as Celex (main EU law database), Scad (publications and briefings) and Ted (Tenders database). The section includes homepages for Member States governments. While the web addresses of the institutions and sections may change, the descriptions which give a flavour of what is available are very useful to those new to EU information hoping to retrieve information, and give the reader an impression of the structure of the Europa web site.

Section five gives a list of free periodicals mostly from EU organisations, but also from other organisations and interest groups, available both in electronic and printed formats. The book also includes a subject index, divided into general subjects such as bibliographies, consumer issues, education, law and regional policies, and there is an alphabetical index of sources. Finally there is an index of addresses for organisations where contact details have not been included in the main text.

The book does not attempt the impossible task of listing every web address or every title available free. The author tries instead to give a guide to the kind of information available, the bodies that will provide it, and lists homepages and addresses of the key institutions and organisations, to give a good starting point to researchers.