The new Eurostat yearbook: an online publication in Statistics Explained, with rolling updates Point 15 of the agenda Jukka Piirto Unit B6: Dissemination Jukka.Piirto@ec.europa.eu

Structure of this presentation Recent decisions on the Eurostat yearbook Yearbook evolution, especially since 2008 Criticism of and justifications for the recent decisions Future issues

Recent decisions on the Eurostat yearbook Eurostat has decided during the past year to discontinue both the paper and the PDF yearbook move to a rolling update of the online yearbook in Statistics Explained

Eurostat yearbook evolution 1/6 Evolution from an annual paper & PDF publication to a rollingly updated online-only publication (1996)─2010 editions Preparation: Word, Excel, emails Output: printed book and web PDF in English, German and French (until 2001 also in some other languages) Slide 4 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Eurostat yearbook evolution 2/6 2011─2012 editions Preparation: In Statistics Explained → Improvements: A unique collaborative preparation environment with built-in history and talk Content becomes earlier published in English in Statistics Explained Output: Book & PDF in English only, online yearbook in three languages, in 2012 17 articles also in 18 additional languages Slide 5 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Intermezzo: How is an article updated in Statistics Explained? The responsible production unit chooses whether they update themselves or ask the Dissemination unit's contractor to update, possibly with instructions from the production unit. Then the contractor checks the production unit's work (harmonization) or vice versa. Discussion is continued until agreement with the production unit (responsible for content) and the Dissemination unit (responsible for presentation). Slide 6 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Eurostat yearbook evolution 3/6 Slide 7 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Eurostat yearbook evolution 4/6 Croatian not before autumn 2014 Slide 8 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Eurostat yearbook evolution 5/6 2013 edition Output: - Printed book & PDF discontinued. - All 89 English, German and French articles are online as well as the 17 multilingual articles. Continuously updated online-only publication From the latter half of 2013 onwards Online-only publication → full-scale rolling update, when every article is updated at most suitable time period(s) during the year. NB: No annual edition, the term "yearbook" has only historical relevance. Slide 9 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Eurostat yearbook evolution 6/6 Work will be spread more evenly throughout the year → earlier bottlenecks avoided Rolling translation Freshness improvement from rolling update and rolling translation English: 0–12 months, in average 6 months Other languages: 1½–18 months, in average 9½ months. Slide 10 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Criticism and justifications 1/3 No printed book anymore Very low sales figures (price EUR 30) 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 English 934 797 299 219 115 German 283 201 44 French 52 58 11 Little feedback from the free dissemination to MEPs, Commission senior management and national parliaments (EU, Candidate Countries and EFTA). High electronic usage 200 000 PDF downloads annually online yearbook visit figures: next slide

= Yearbook article Cumulative figures for around 4 years

Criticism and justifications 2/3 2. No PDF anymore, although it is by far the most downloaded Eurostat PDF publication Producing PDF with full layout consumes resources (time and money) One electronic format is enough Advantages of online yearbook in Statistics Explained For users Freshness Searchability and findability Easier linking Readable on all devices For producers Preparation environment = Publication environment

Criticism and justifications 3/3 No single temporal reference Even when there was a unique data extraction period the reference periods varied across the data sources Coherence of the articles, e.g. revisions of common denominators (GDP, total population, …) Even when there was a unique data extraction period there was no guarantee that different articles had used the same revision of common denominators. Fresh vs. slightly more coherent outdated content? Data extraction month is mentioned in the beginning of each article. The user can always extract the latest data via data codes underneath the tables, figures and maps.

Future issues 1/2 Archiving Annual yearbook PDF creation inside Statistics Explained in addition to the annual whole Statistics Explained wide PDF archiving? Slide 15 DWG 17-18 October 2013

Future issues 2/2 Incorporation of dynamic visualisations? with the frozen data of the descriptive/analytic text of the article with online data, possibly fresher than the data used for the descriptive/analytic text of the article Slide 16 DWG 17-18 October 2013