1. EU information sources – an overview Aubrey Greenwood Subject Librarian arthistpol-sl@bbk.ac.uk Library

2. Part 1 Finding out about EU legislation Tracking the legislative process UK implementation Part 2 Finding books/journal articles on an EU issue How to use bibliographic databases

3. EU legislation Primary legislation (treaties). Secondary legislation (directives, decisions & regulations). published in the “L” series of the Official Journal of the European Union. Preparatory legislation ie commission legislative proposals known as COM docs appear in the “C” series of the Official Journal.

4. EUR-Lex - full text of the Official Journal “L” & “C” series from 1998. Specialist research tools: 1) OEIL Legislative Observatory - European Parliament database tracking the progress of legislation. 2) Pre-Lex – European Commission’s database monitoring the legislative process between EU institutions. EU official website (links to these sites are in the online subject guide)

5. UK transposition Westlaw - UK statutes in force and statutory instruments (SIs). Information about UK implementation.

6. Part 2: finding books/articles on a topic Research databases

7. How to search databases – Boolean logic You search by subject keyword Eg. pollution

8. Boolean Operators - AND If term A is eu and term B is enlargement, the search eu and enlargement will retrieve records containing both key terms.

9. Boolean Operators – OR If term A is eu and term B is european union, the search eu or european union will retrieve records containing either or both terms.

10. Boolean Operators- NOT If term A is homer and term B is simpson, the search homer not simpson will exclude articles about the Simpsons.

11. Boolean logic If you are doing a complicated search combining words with ANDs and ORs, put brackets around the alternative terms linked with OR Eg. eu and (air pollution or greenhouse gases)

12. Helpful hints – Truncation: allows you to search for the stem of a word and any variant spellings (and plurals) Eg. pollut* pollute or pollution or pollutant or pollutants or polluting

13. Helpful hints – To search for an exact phrase you often have to use command language such as inverted commas Eg. “greenhouse gases”

14. Which database to use? Bibliographic research databases – Social Sciences Citation Index, IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences) Ejournal packages – Business Source Premier, ABI INFORM Global, JSTOR, IngentaConnect, ScienceDirect & SwetsWise (remember JSTOR is archival!) Nexis UK – current affairs service including newspapers (English and foreign)

15. Finding articles about secondary EU legislation Agence Europe – detailed information about the workings of the EU. Available on CD-Rom (ask for the disk at the Issue Desk & take it to the Help Desk stand alone PC on Level 1). Updated by DanteNet available on the same machine. Nexis UK – select European news – includes EU Commission’s press releases etc.

16. Other Libraries – Use the e-resources of the Senate House Library Use the BBK interlibrary loan service Join SCONUL access scheme Use the BLPES which is an EDC (European Documentation Centre)