|
By Adrian Janes
 [Editor's note: A new report from the FUMSI Regional Research Series
aims to sketch some of the background to the EU's development, point
out the functions of some of the key institutions and above all
indicate useful sources of information, both on the EU and on Europe
considered more broadly.
Below is an excerpt, but you can order the report in its entirety at
<http://web.fumsi.com/go/report/>.]
Researching Europe
Researching Europe can be undertaken on several levels. Starting with
the national, one finds significant government, mass media and
academic sources. The UK perspective to this report should therefore
be seen as representative of a pattern that can be found to a greater
or lesser extent throughout all of the EU Member States, once an entry
point for a country has been found.
At the national level it is less likely that one will find English
language versions of the information given. (The website of the
Swedish Parliament's EU information service
<http://www.eu-upplysningen.se> is a partial exception to this rule;
they will furthermore supply printed versions of additional
information like fact sheets in English.) Also, at the current level
of development, translation websites and tools are not capable of
dealing with language of any great complexity or ambiguity. It would
therefore be best to be fluent in the language of a non-English
speaking country in order to get the best from the information sources
available for it. To help locate such sources, there are specialised
search engines for various European countries gathered together at
Netmasters <http://www.netmasters.co.uk/european_search_engines> and
Aniota <http://www.aniota.com/europa.html>. Phil Bradley
<http://www.philb.com> (click on Country Search Engines tab for
alphabetical groupings) and The Big Search Engine Index
<http://www.search-engine-index.co.uk> are especially comprehensive,
not just for European but worldwide coverage.
With the latter site, ignore the categorised section which produces
basically sponsored results and scroll down to Pick A Country for the
search engines. A good way into resources for a particular country is
to see if its embassy has a Web presence. Many embassies now
understand that part of their mission to present information on their
country needs to be undertaken on the Web. Check Embassy World
<http://www.embassyworld.com> for an extensive list. If the country or
countries you wish to research have a physical presence, the chances
are they will have a virtual one too, with information and links (eg
official investment contacts) tailored to citizens of your country.
Another way to locate sources for a specific country is to incorporate
its Internet suffix into your search terms when using a general search
engine such as Google or Yahoo. A list of these suffixes (eg fr =
France, es = Spain, etc) is provided by the Internet Assigned Names
Authority <http://www.iana.org/root-whois/index.html>.
Beyond this level there is the regional (for example Western, Central
or Eastern Europe) and organisations like the EU or the Council of
Europe, which aspire to be more or less pan-European. With the
regional and pan- European levels, awareness and public interest as
reflected in the media seem lower, and sources that come into their
own are university departments or faculties, think tanks (often with
some sort of ideological slant to their work), and specialised
commercial research organisations. It should also be observed that to
some extent this division into levels is always artificial, so for
example the EU's anticipated enlargement will take it further into the
Balkans, and its developing economic and political power will
inevitably have growing implications for Russia. Therefore research on
an individual country often cannot remain restricted to that country
because of the interdependence that is increasingly apparent in
Europe.
General sources of information
The quality of information obtainable from and about the EU and its
Member States matches its vastness. There has been a conscious
movement by the EU in recent years to place much more online, as well
as developing information networks to deal with enquiries from
citizens and businesses. For pamphlets and books, including online
versions, the EU Bookshop <http://digbig.com/4tqjs> and the EU
Publications Office <http://publications.europa.eu/index_en.htm> are
the best places to start. The Publications Office home page also
serves as an immediate gateway to important publications like the
Official Journal and EU Whoiswho.
Europa <http://europa.eu/index_en.htm> is the preeminent official
gateway. All the main areas of activity are covered, from Agriculture
to Transport, with links rapidly leading from the broad to the very
specific.
Eurojargon <http://europa.eu/abc/eurojargon/index_en.htm> attempts to
put into plain, concise language many of the activities and concepts
that underlie the EU. This is a good quick reference.
Europe Direct <http://ec.europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm> has a
clickable map to indicate centres for EU information in each of the
member states. They are intended to be able to answer enquiries on all
aspects of the EU, whether it is a question of policy or the practical
exercise of rights.
In Britain, the European Information Network
<http://www.europe.org.uk/info/> not only provides links to Europe
Direct centres, but also includes networks aimed at specific
audiences:
- European Documentation Centres (academic)
- European Information Centres (business)
- European Public Information Centres (based in public libraries).
European Union Delegation of the European Commission to the USA
<http://eurunion.org/infores/euindex.htm> maintains an extremely
thorough collection providing links to many important EU sites. They
are organised as Essential EU Sites, Essential Sites in Business,
Education and Law, and sites for EU institutions and agencies. Since
the workings of the EU are probably as mysterious to many Europeans as
they are to Americans, it's also worth knowing about the PDF
publication, 'The European Union: a guide for Americans' (included
under Publications), which is a good introduction.
Even more comprehensive is the superb set of links maintained by the
office of the European Commission in the UK
<http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/links/index_en.h tm>. Some of the
individual sites it collects will be referred to in the course of this
report, but this is an essential jumping-off point. It includes such
subject areas as European Institutions and Agencies; Consumers/Health;
The Euro; EC Delegations around the World; and Business Advice. There
are also particular links to UK Government departments which have a
European dimension.
The Library of Congress has a series of Portals to the World. The
European one is at
<http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/european/euro.html>. This brings
together categorised links by country (although there is also a set of
links for the European Union) in such areas as Business, Commerce,
Economy; Education; Recreation and Travel. Search engines for each
nation are a further category. The British Library takes a national
approach for Western Europe, and a somewhat more regional one for
Eastern Europe. For example, resources related to France are at
<http://www.bl.uk/collections/westeuropean/france.html>, but many
links for Central and Eastern Europe are at
<http://www.bl.uk/collections/easteuropean/slavonicinternet.html>
(especially useful is the section Information sources on Central and
Eastern Europe). There is a further layer of links to resources for
individual countries such as Bulgaria or Poland. Typically these
gather together official, academic and news sites.
Berkeley University's European Union Internet Resources
<http://digbig.com/4tqjw> is particularly well-organised and
comprehensive. Each of its broad subject areas - EU Institutions and
Bodies, EU by Subject, EU Documents by Type, and Other Items of
Interest - is in turn logically broken down, enabling a researcher to
quickly find potentially relevant sites for an enquiry. Indeed all of
the library collections noted here share these qualities. There is
also an inevitable degree of overlap between them, but being aware of
these various gateways maximises the chances of finding useful sites.
Academia is an important source of European information, not least
because the study of the EU, an organisation unique in terms of
political science, is a burgeoning field. The British Library gateway
noted above includes an extensive list of academic links.
This academic interest has produced valuable Open Access material.
Some indicative examples are:
- Journal of Contemporary European Research <http://www.jcer.net>,
covering areas like international relations, economics and sociology
- European University Institute at Florence (Italy)
<http://www.iue.it>, which publishes the European Journal of Legal
Studies as well as a range of papers via its Robert Schuman Centre
for Advanced Studies
- Palgrave Macmillan <http://www.palgrave.com> publish a large range
of books on Europe. From the standpoint of this report, what is most
interesting is that many of them have companion websites which bring
together useful links and update material.
One of the best of these is Tim Bale's European Politics Guide
<http://www.palgrave.com/politics/bale/guide.htm> which has chapter by
chapter links for his book 'European Politics: a comparative
introduction'. These relate to chapters on issues like 'Federalism,
devolution and the European Union' and 'The Media: player and
recorder', so are good for keeping informed on important issues. More
broadly, the same site's EU Resource Area
<http://www.palgrave.com/politics/eu> has contributions from other
authoritative writers, producing features such as guides to 'The
European Union on the Web' and 'European Union Environmental
Legislation', along with a chronology of European Union integration.
Most of the websites in this chapter are pan- European in scope
(although quite often providing the opportunity to drill down to
national-level sources). However there are some which take a more
regional view. WESSWEB, <http://wess.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page>
maintained by the Association of College and Research Libraries in the
US, is a clearly laid-out site concentrating on Western Europe. Some
countries have their own section (eg Dutch Studies), others are
grouped into regions (eg Iberian Studies). In each case they lead on
to Subject Resources, a Reference Shelf (dictionaries, guides and
directories) and Newspaper and Other News Sources.
A good equivalent for Central and Eastern Europe is Slavophilia
<http://www.slavophilia.com> whose range extends from the Czech
Republic up to and including Russia. Entry is either through broad
subject areas (Computers and Internet, News and Media, Science, etc)
or through the Country Focus section. Coverage of some countries is
significantly better in some cases than others, but this is probably
as much to do with the relative underdevelopment of the Internet in
those places as any other factor. Slavophilia does at least provide a
starting point for researchers which, given the nature of the
Internet, inevitably leads to further links.
Taken altogether, the above resources should give useful information
on many areas of life for just about every European country, whether
or not it is an EU Member State or a candidate country, or not in the
EU at all. The following chapters in this report will concentrate on
resources for more specific areas of interest. However the general
sources should always be kept in mind, as they constitute an enormous
and well-organised treasury of information.
After several years as a musician and songwriter, Adrian Janes began
his career in information in academic libraries. Subsequently he moved
into public libraries with the London Borough of Havering (UK). He
currently works as an Information Services Librarian in the borough's
main library, where he has particular responsibility for European
Union information and British Official Publications. He is also
closely involved in the continuing development of a "Recommended
Websites" page, and trains library staff and members of the public in
the use of electronic reference resources. He has contributed a number
of book reviews and articles to FreePint. This is his first research
report for Free Pint Limited. He is married with two sons, and enjoys
sharing his continuing passion for music with these young Beatles,
Monkees and Ramones fans.
Related FreePint links:
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif "[Get Copyright Permissions]")
Click here for copyright permissions!
Copyright 2008 Free Pint Ltd.
You may also be interested in:
|
