Mojca Ogrin, EDC Ljubljana

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EDC
Role and opportunities in the IT era

• Mojca Ogrin, EDC Ljubljana

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European documentation centres (1)

• are established by the European Commission at
  the selected universities of higher education or
  research institutions in the EU member states and
  in many other countries.
• are maintained through contractual arrangements
  indicating obligations of each party.

EDC Ljubljana
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European documentation centres (2)

• provide access for the academic world and for
  citizens to most of the documentation produced by
  EU institutions.
• are organized as an information network of the
  European Commission.

EDC Ljubljana
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EDC network - 544 offices worldwide
324 in Member States
84 in other European countries
136 outside Europe
EDC Ljubljana
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The general tasks of EDCs are

• collecting,
• cataloguing,
• archiving and
• providing access
• to the documentation, publications and non-book
  materials of the European institutions.

EDC Ljubljana
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The history of EDC Ljubljana

• 1990 - established as specialized EDC
  and opened to the public
• 1995 - promoted to the highest i.e. full EDC
  status
• 1998 - got status of a special library
• 2000 - our collections was included in the
  COBISS

EDC Ljubljana
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Our EDC web site offers

• general information about our activities,
• review of subjects i.e. European union
  policies,
• databases of periodical publications and
  monographs, accessible on EDC premises,
• access to the electronic databases with
  materials in electronic form,
• list of relevant further links to web sites of
  European institutions and information relays at
  home and abroad.

EDC Ljubljana
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Forms of distributed materials

• At the beginning, EDC received materials mostly
  in paper form and - especially documentation - on
  microfiches.
• After 1998 the electronic form on CD-ROMs
  prevailed.
• Today almost 80 percent of materials is being
  asccessible on-line via Internet.

EDC Ljubljana
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Number of distributed materials by form
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We are daily noticing

• Exponential growth of information resources
• New, more pretentious generation of students
  and researchers with new needs and expectations
• New opportunities of information technology
• Needs for international exchange of data,
  information and materials

EDC Ljubljana
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Some questions to ask ourselves

• What do we need to do to serve our users
  better?
• How can we build an infrastructure and data
  collections that could be used for various
  groups of users?
• How can we better integrate with other
  information relays and their services?
• What should we stop doing so that we could do
  what is more important (creating a list of
  priorities)?

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From web site to portal

• In accordance with the mentioned circumstances
  and because we are aware that only librarians
  like to search, anyone else like to find, we
  decided to build bilingual Internet portal with
  digital library.

EDC Ljubljana
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What is an Internet portal?
Portal a doorway, an entrance or means
of entrance

• Portal is an Internet application that integrates
  content, applications, search and security from
  other systems.
• Portal is a website considered as an entry point
  often by being or providing access to a search
  engine.
• Portal is a website targeted at specific
  audiences, providing delivery of information
  relevant to the audience.

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Different types of portals
Institutional portals
Subject portals
Data type portals
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Examples
Institutional portals
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Examples
Subject portals
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Examples
Data type portals
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And what is a digital library?
Digital library (also known as virtual or
electronic library) is a collection of digital
objects or information, that is

• selected by a chosen criteria,
• planned and carefully organized,
• accessible and
• preserved.

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Our portal will offer to users

• Easy distance access to information and materials
  
• Simultaneous use of databases and other resources
• Easy cross-searching through various databases
  (search engine)
• Quick and timely delivery of information
• Interaction with portal manager (feedback
  information)
• User friendly structure of portal content focused
  on most important topics

EDC Ljubljana
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Structure of portal content
Basic services services
Interactive services
Information services
EDC Ljubljana
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Basic services (1)

• Database of monographs and periodical
  publications accessible physically on EDC
  premises (mainly issued by Office for Official
  Publications of the European Communities and
  other official bodies).
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Basic services (2)

• Database of materials about European
  integration processes issued by Slovenian
  government and its ministries, faculties and
  institutes (monographs, doctoral dissertations,
  diplomas, masters theses, manuals, research and
  project documentations, proceedings, working
  papers), accessible as reference, abstracts or
  full-texts in Slovene and English language.

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Basic services (3)

• Revision of authorised articles, published in
  Slovenian periodicals (Teorija in praksa,
  Ekonomska revija, IB, Ampak, etc.) and articles
  of Slovenian authors published abroad.

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Basic services (4)

• Announcement of new arrivals of books in the
  domain of European integration processes with
  abstracts and critiques.
• (All materials will be classified into 18
  subject-oriented divisions)

EDC Ljubljana
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Basic services (5)

• On-line access to the documents of European
  institutions
• Cross-searching engine
• List of descriptors or key words
• Links to the relevant portals and web sites

EDC Ljubljana
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Information services

• Daily news
• Websites of European projects (Jean Monnet
  project, ECSA, Socrates, Erasmus, etc.)
• Student pages (seminars, tenders for projects,
  lessons, advice for students)

EDC Ljubljana
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Interactive services (1)

• Frequently asked questions or expert advice
  (answers of expert to specific questions of
  domestic or foreign users)
• Moderated discussion forum on actual topics in
  Slovene or English language

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Interactive services (2)

• Students chat (live discussion forum)
• On-line help to users

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Topics of portal content

• Institutional questions
• Custom union and commercial policy
• Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
• Employment and labour
• Social questions
• Laws and procedures
• Transport
• Competition and undertakings
• Finance

• Economic questions
• External relations
• Energy
• Regional policy
• Environment
• Scientific and technical research
• Information, education and culture
• Statistics
• Slovenia and European Union

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Access to the portal content

• We intend to develop the portal strategically.
  On the first stage all content should be
  accessible without restrictions.
• Later we plan to create two levels of access.

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Two level of accession
BASIC or GENERAL Accessible free of charge
without restrictions (lists of references, news,
documents, forum, chat)
ADVANCED or EXPERT Accessible with password
against the license payment (full-text databases,
expert advices, researches)
EDC Ljubljana
The content of expert level will be decided
according to authors licenses and other
contracts
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The long-term aims of the portal (1)

• Providing an integrated platform and unique entry
  for a complete rang of information about European
  Union
• Create an information network of institutions,
  which are concerned with studies of European
  integrations or play an active role in them
  (institutes, ministries, associations, etc.)
• Offer effective support to researchers,
  professors, students, public administration.

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The long-term aims of the portal (2)

• Offer information support to exchange students.
• Become a meeting and reference point for all
  those, who are professionally, privately or for
  study purposes concerned with European
  integration policy.
• Become improved guide through the European Union
  information resources

EDC Ljubljana
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An example of EDC portal

• Portal of EDC Mainhaim is a good example of
  sucessful, well designed and frequently used
  portal. Athough it is placed at German
  university, its not only accessed by users from
  Germany or other EU member states but also by
  web-visitors from USA, Canada, Japan etc.

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Daily usage of portal
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Hourly usage of portal
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Usage by country
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Thank you!

• Contact
• mojca.ogrin_at_uni-lj.si