The Eu's Legal Information Service: A User's Perspective
| Author | Grace Hudson |
| Profession | Deputy University Librarian, European Documentation Centre, University of Bradford, UK, National coordinator for UK EDCs |
| Pages | 60-71 |
Page 60
Caught up in the day-to-day battle of attempting to provide instantaneous answers to a wide variety of enquiries, the information professional does not often pause to reflect on the evolution of an information service but the 25th anniversary of the first public appearance of CELEX, the legal database of the then European Community, is a good point to re-examine how the EU's legal information service has developed to meet the needs of its users, how well it matches their requirements and what might be expected of it in the 21st century.
Looking back, it is incontrovertible that - aided by technological developments - the new merged EUR-Lex/CELEX service now available has undergone a complete transformation since its inception but it is also true that much of that change has been driven by its users. Although we are considering a quarter of a century of public access, the origins of CELEX go back even further to the initial decision in 1966 that there was a requirement to create an online system for internal use for the retrieval of legal documents. By 1971 the system was finally live, offering a means of controlling the various legislative documents produced but it was not until a decade later that CELEX was opened up and made publicly available. The fact that the database was originally designed for internal use is, however, significant. Essentially, it was created for users with an intimate knowledge of the workings of the legislative and judicial system and the documents generated by the process. As French was the working language of the Court of Justice and was widely used by Commission officials, the French influence is evident in the early development of the database with its powerful Mistral software, and even in later years the French text was often more complete. When the database was first opened to the public in 1981, it was a far cry from the simple and intuitive interfaces that users have come to expect today. Technology has advanced and access to legal information has advanced with it but so too have expectations, and users of today are more stringent in the standards that they set. Key amongst the considerations of the 'right now' generation of information seekers are issues such as speed and currency, but also authoritativeness, reliability, completeness of coverage, ease of use, powerful-Page 61ness of search capability, frequency and regularity of updating, minimising of downtime, clear documentation and availability of helpdesk support.
In the 1980s users had to contend with dial-up access, the inevitable connection difficulties, the problem of an international telephone call to seek help and communicating in another language. How simple e-mail and the Internet make life in comparison. The barriers outlined were considerable but there was also the struggle to understand the structure of the database and the intricacies of the retrieval command language. Of necessity CELEX comprises a complex set of data with a wide variety of 'non-standard' document types, each with its own set of fields containing the detailed analytic data which makes precision searching possible and is the strength of the service. In order to search effectively and obtain good results, it is essential to understand the legislative and judicial processes. This remains as true today as twenty-five years ago. What has changed is that with a web interface the actual searching has become much simpler. The danger is that this can create a sense of security which lulls the inexperienced user into thinking that they have found 'the answer' without properly understanding the real significance of the stages of documentation.
Training, a reference manual and helpdesk support were therefore essential to exploit the CELEX database fully. The Mistral retrieval language is a very powerful and flexible tool but key to using it effectively is a reference guide to the codes and indexes, or lexicons as they were known. It is incomprehensible that today's users would consider working with something like the original CELEX manual - huge, poorly presented, in questionable translation and difficult to understand. A quick reference card is generally the maximum that current searchers will look at before launching in to a database as the general expectation is that interfaces will be simple and intuitive. However 'launching in' was not an option for Mistral novices. The question was where and how to begin? The concept of simple and advanced searching was irrelevant. Even conducting a basic search required some understanding of the command language and searchable fields. Training was offered in Brussels but this was not necessarily a convenient or financially practical option for all. The decision to decentralise the training by putting its delivery out to tender to organisations in the Member States in 1992 made it more widely accessible. Some 'self-help' training had been taking place with, for example, the Association of EDC Librarians in the UK organising small practical sessions for its members. The European Information Association, which grew out of the Association of EDC Librarians but with a wider and more international membership, had the expe-Page 62rience and was successful in winning a contract to provide training on behalf of Eurobases. It also later continued to deliver the training on behalf of the UK gateway, Context, when invoicing and helpdesk support was also decentralised to local sales agents. Training still has its place today in getting the most out of EUR-Lex though it no longer requires a full two days to focus on the mechanics of how to conduct a search.
Though there was demand from outside the institutions for access to CELEX prior to 1981 which resulted in it being opened up for public use, it was the creation of the single market which generated significantly wider interest and increasingly pressure grew for a simpler interface for non-specialist users. One option, not pursued, was the suggestion of using the CCL retrieval system developed by ECHO, but finally in 1996 a menu-driven version was offered. This was frustratingly slow and limited for experienced users but was a boon for the occasional visitor. It was, however, just an interim step. Article 15 of the European Parliament's Resolution A4-0008/98 encouraged the Commission togive higher priority to swift and easily accessible electronic dissemination of Community law, especially via the Internet; welcomes the decision of the Management Committee of the Office for Official Publications to give access via the Internet to Community law, including information on the state of implementation of Community law in each Member State.
In 1997 the first web version appeared. Before that date, however, access difficulties and the complexity of the search language, combined with the driver of the single market, opened up the market to commercial providers and by the time the official version of the simple web interface went public there were twenty-two commercial licences for CELEX data in place. Context was the first to produce a CD-ROM version in 1989 but was followed by a number of other companies including DataStar, Ellis Publications, FT Profile, ILI, LexisNexis, Lovdata, Technical Indexes, amongst others, offering commercial versions of CELEX on CD-ROM, online or later via the Internet in a highly competitive market. They were able to offer billing in the Member States' own currency, helpdesk support, and training and so filled a niche. The decision of Eurobases, the CELEX host based within the Office for Official Publications, to establish gateways in the Member States to act as sales agents and provide help, invoicing and training at a local level provided a similar level of support for the official version of the database but commercial companies soughtPage 63 to add value in a number of other ways through, for example, the insertion of missing text, improved printing and saving facilities, the addition of acquired nicknames for directives to improve subject searching, the inclusion of images, and the combination of sources such as CELEX with SCAD or CELEX with the UK Department of Trade and Industry database Spearhead on single market national implementing measures, in order to provide complementary information. They also offered the possibility of providing networked access, enabling simultaneous multiple access, particularly important in an academic environment with heavy student use. CD-ROM access, in particular, provided a defence against unexpected downtime but by its very nature it was inevitably less current than the official source from which its data was drawn. The commercial providers additionally led the way in the development of saved profiles and alert services, raising users' expectations of other sources.
It is hard to remember how relatively short a time the Internet - and e-mail - has been in wide practical use and how much this has changed the way we work. A report of a 1996 study in the UK is just one example which illustrates this clearly. Pre-dating the Europe Direct Centres, a network of EU information providers aimed at the general public was launched. They were branded as Public Information Relays (PIRs) - later renamed European Public Information Centres (EPICs) - and were based in UK public libraries. Shortly after their inception a research project was conducted to investigate the provision of EU information by public libraries. One of the questions in the survey related to access to electronic information and the answers were illuminating. Only 27 % used online hosts to obtain EU information and a mere 8 % had access to Eurobases despite a negotiated 50 % discount. Comments indicated concern about the lack of a user-friendly interface and the need for training. Only 19 % had Internet access and generally focused on Europa and I'm Europe, though it was accepted that this was 'likely to increase considerably' - as indeed it has, dramatically. In contrast, 39 % had CD-ROMs, including at least one title providing European information.
It was not surprising therefore that the arrival of the web version of CELEX in August 1997 was met with wide acclaim. The new graphic interface successfully managed to create a simple access route to a complex set of documentation and it was a measure of the enthusiastic approval from users that it was awarded the prize for the best electronic resource that year by the European Information Association. The impact of the simple interface was immediatelyPage 64 evident in the usage statistics with some 5 million documents viewed in 1997 via the new version in contrast to 2.5 million displayed via Mistral.
The Amsterdam Treaty laid down the obligation to provide free access to Community measures. Although widely disseminated, as the European Parliament had resolved, the new web version of CELEX remained a fee-paying database so it was not yet freely and easily accessible. The launch of the EURLex website in 1998 was the first step to free access, though at first this meant in reality the treaties, consolidated legislation in HTML format and the last 20 days of the Official Journal L and C, with links also to the text of case-law from mid-1997 from the Court of Justice website. Nevertheless, it set the trend in currency as it was updated daily with the latest issues of the Official Journal and helped users to fill the gap between the most recent information and what had been loaded into the database. Even better, the 20-day limit was extended to 45 days and the content coverage quickly increased. The other major innovation was the availability of full text in PDF format, which started to address the issue of graphics and tables not being available in CELEX. After one month EUR-Lex was already in the top 10 most visited sites on Europa with over 100 000 hits and 2 500 users per day.
By June 2001 the EUR-Lex portal had been launched, bringing together a collection of legal resources as well as useful background information on the workings of the institutions and the decision-making process. EUDOR, the digital archive, closed as a separate entity but the content remained accessible via the EUR-Lex portal and as a format option in CELEX. Users quickly found, however, that the search functionality in EUR-Lex was extremely limited and were confused by the different results produced by the 'Quick search', which used the Europa search engine restricted to the EUR-Lex site, and the 'All' search, which used the EUR-Lex search function. Results were often less than satisfactory and difficult to refine successfully so users were referred to the fee-paying CELEX via an 'Advanced search' link. While initially the option to charge for access to legislation via EUR-Lex was considered, it was agreed that from January 2002 it should be entirely free in all document formats. One big gap from the user's perspective was the omission from the home page of a designated route to finding the national implementing measures, although in practice - with a knowledge of the CELEX document numbering system - it was possible with some ingenuity to extract the information.
One of the challenges of maintaining a legal information system is that it is not static. Besides the regular updating, the system needs to adapt to copePage 65 with new document types, new institutions and working procedures, and extension of the content coverage. The Maastricht Treaty, for example, introduced the Committee of the Regions and major treaty changes; at another time there was the decision to incorporate the full text of the content of the Official Journal C series as well as documents relating to the EFTA states; and new codes were introduced for documents relating to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Justice and Home Affairs, and acts of the European Central Bank. This resulted in the creation of new sectors in CELEX, as well as new codes. COM documents were originally available only as bibliographic records, then in the format which excluded the explanatory memorandum - a section of the document which is often of particular interest to users - before being added in full. Similarly the COM documents listed in EUR-Lex were at first only proposals for legislation but did not include the important Green and White Papers, later added under the heading 'Documents of public interest'. The original intention announced for the site was to retain COM documents for three years only but demand from users - particularly in the light of the withdrawal of dissemination of printed COM documents to the information relays - prompted a review as concerns were raised about the need for continuing long-term access to earlier documents. It is essential in using an information resource to be aware of exactly what the content coverage is. As content has been added and expanded over the years and new document sets created, this is an extremely important aspect for serious users of a legal information service if they are to know what they can expect to find.
As individual Member States began to produce free databases of their national legislation, the expectation that EU legislation should be freely available increased. The Publications Office recognised that legislation is in the public domain and no longer required prior permission to be requested for the reproduction of texts. A further move towards openness and transparency was the adoption of Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents and the European Parliament's Resolution in December 2002 that CELEX should be made free of charge. This was the impetus to develop a new merged legal information service blending the best of the EUR-Lex portal and the subscription-based CELEX. While users were disappointed in July 2004 to see the public debut of the new service (finally designated simply EUR-Lex) in only an embryo state, it was recognised that there was considerable pressure on the existing CELEX database with the decision for free access to CELEX together with the accession of 10 new Member States, the major work of adding data in all the newPage 66 languages and the work done on the codification, consolidation and simplification of the acquis. Developing a new service in this context is no easy task. Users have welcomed the continuing development of the new EUR-Lex service, even after its official launch in November 2004, as issues are addressed and new elements brought on stream. The decision to maintain access to the old CELEX, though no longer updated after December 2004, provided an essential backup, but it is now time to let go.
The new service has again heeded users' requests and offers improved functionality, particularly in the displaying of results lists. As new standards demand it is clearly laid out and WAI compliant. The search screens offer helpful tips and hints and, matching the commercial hosts, the latest new addition is the LexAlert feature where current awareness notifications can be set up. The home page has also recently incorporated access to the experimental N-Lex service which offers a common search template to search the legislative sites of the individual Member States for details of the transposition of directives. This is one of the most frequently asked questions that EU information professionals have to deal with and N-Lex has therefore been greeted with warmth. Technical issues beyond the control of the Publications Office mean that N-Lex cannot provide the perfect solution but any tool which assists in this area is to be widely welcomed.
One major development of the site still outstanding is the Advanced Search option 1. The simple graphic interface developed for CELEX in 1997 did not require users to understand and use the document reference codes in the way they had to previously for Mistral. Previously the excellent three volume reference manual produced in 1995 included details of the content and all the relevant codes as well as tutorials on how to use the Mistral version of the database and was invaluable, though quickly out of date. The online reference guide made available via the CELEX home page in December 2001 did not provide tutorials but did give an update on the essential reference codes. This is an area which requires constant updating to reflect changes. These days, searchers would expect to find the information through online help screens. Following the launch of the graphic interface for CELEX in 1997, an advanced search option was not immediately provided - perhaps to test whether one was really required. However, here again experienced users expressed their concerns about the limitations of the effective but basic new interface. It was not until 2001 that the Expert search function for CELEX was launched with a downloadable guide. It is predicated on a deep understanding of the structure of the data, asPage 67 gained in using the Mistral software, but the time-gap and the turnover in EU information professionals has probably reduced the number of users able to benefit to the full from the development. External users of CELEX also had considerable problems with firewalls blocking the downloading of Java applets essential to its functioning so many potential users were unable to benefit from its introduction. This time-gap has again been repeated between the termination of updates to CELEX and the expected launch of a slightly adapted version of the Expert search in the new EUR-Lex service. It remains to be seen what level of use it will achieve. For many experienced users there is still a very real need for an advanced search function that would enable them to specify a number of parameters such as document type, search terms and date all together instead of repeatedly having to refine the basic search but it may that what they have in mind is the more advanced search screens developed by the commercial hosts rather than the level of complexity and detailed knowledge required by the current Expert search. The new EUR-Lex search screens, which allow searches within specific 'collections', go a step towards this approach by defining the document type before selecting the next criteria.
Legal information stands apart from many other subject areas in the need to ensure the provision of authoritative, reliable, current and comprehensive information with a high quality standard. What is asked of the EU legal information service is however far beyond that of commercial providers: it has to be produced not just in one or a few languages but in all the official languages; it must work with, and coordinate input from not just one source but all the contributing institutions, often with their own specific requirements such as the Court of Justice headwords; and it must ensure comprehensive coverage of the documents for inclusion within tight deadlines.
So what of the future? What might be included in users' wish lists for further enhancements? It would be reassuring to feel that working systems were in place to ensure full coverage of the key documents which have been defined as part of the system content, supplied by the institutions to the Publications Office within agreed timescales and maintained in the system as a permanent archive. A clear archiving policy has been a major concern of users since the introduction of electronic data, though in practice early print documents are equally in danger.
A high priority would be the implementation of a system to ensure that all available information reported by national states about their transposition of directives is loaded into the database as soon as possible and on a regularPage 68 basis, to be made publicly available. This requires that the information is passed consistently to the legal information system producers. The national implementing measures sector of information is one that has many known gaps and improvements here would be of enormous benefit to users.
It would also be good to see a higher prominence for this set of data on the home page. The references - albeit incomplete - can of course be displayed from the directive record by clicking on the MNE link. However, the access route is not immediately obvious to all and is not at the top level, but several levels down. Now that the pilot version of N-Lex is available from the EUR-Lex home page, it would make its use more accurate if the relevant implementing measure reference could quickly be copied and pasted from EUR-Lex into the N-Lex search template. Ultimately, of course, the EULEX project goal of live hyperlinks to the full text of the reference would be the most desirable option but it is appreciated that working with all the different (and changing) systems of the current Member States and preparing for new ones - where indeed free and suitable national legislative databases exist - make this a hard technical target to achieve and maintain.
While there have been some suggestions that the system should be broadened in scope to include some more ephemeral documents, that appear for example in the registers, there is a strong counter-argument that the system is already extremely large and the distraction of overloading the system with documents of lesser importance would make it more difficult to sift through the volume of results to identify references wanted, as well as putting pressure on the system management in other ways. On the other hand there are additional documents which are already beginning to make an appearance in the service and which are important. Efforts should be made to ensure that they are included consistently. SEC documents were previously considered internal documents and not therefore made publicly available. However, with changes to the way COM documents are produced, the requirement for impact assessments and the detail of proposals in annexes to the briefer framework COM proposals, the related SEC documents are becoming an integral part of the proposal and vital for a proper understanding of the significance of what is being brought forward. They need, therefore, to be easily accessible via the legal information system.
Answers to many legal enquiries seem to be required by yesterday, if not last week. The minimising of downtime is considered a vital element of service provision. This of course poses particular difficulties for a service which hasPage 69 users around the world in all time zones. The speed of updating has made great strides over the years, as has the presentation, with the loading of rich character sets. LexAlert now assists in keeping abreast of developments and the option of RSS feeds rather that just e-mail reports matches the latest working methods of many information providers.
No EU information researcher, however experienced, can retain an exact mental record of precisely which document sets are available from which dates and in which format, whether full text, bibliographic, HTML only or PDF, with or without graphics and more... The provision of current information about the precise content of the database and updating patterns would assist greatly in obtaining successful results. If an advanced search option is to be maintained in its existing format, it will require access to more detailed reference information to enable precision searching. The alternative would be to develop a more advanced web interface where, for example, drop-down menus could be used to offer the currently available options while permitting the combination of several search criteria on one screen.
No doubt users would welcome PDF files prior to 1998 but it may be hard to justify the effort this work would entail. Previously underused sectors such as 8 and 10 have long had developments of potential value planned for them. Sector 10 now has some data concerning bibliographic references relating to published works on EU law, but sector 8 remains to see input of references to national court decisions relating to EU provisions.
The difficulty of effective subject searching has remained problematic despite best efforts to find a solution. Eurovoc terminology has been introduced to most areas, though the Court has taken longer to win over. As far as free text searching is concerned the real issue is Eurospeak terminology - and here the user must simply learn by experience.
Over the years responsibility for the legal information system has been variously with the Database Distribution Service of the Commission, and since 1992 the Publications Office where it fits well within the overall brief for print and electronic dissemination. Wherever it is located, e-mail now makes contact simple and fast and it is essential that a helpdesk support contact point is maintained with an in-depth understanding of the system and clear parameters for response times.
With technological advances the service will without doubt continue to develop. The EU Databases User Group, whose origins date back to the CELEX Database User Group formed in 1989, has not only lobbied on behalf of itsPage 70 members but through regular meetings it keeps its members up to date with developments, inviting speakers responsible for official electronic resources. This makes sure that information about changes is publicised to interested parties and it also provides an interface between the producers and the users. Similarly, the European Information Association has a body of members who regularly use the EU information services and would be happy to offer feedback. Testing extensively, in a live situation with genuine enquiries, throws up issues which it would be hard to replicate artificially. Regular users would be more than willing to provide feedback, take part in focus groups and test changes. After all it is the users' best interests to help get it right!
European Parliament Resolution A4-0008/98.
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Hanson, T. 'An introduction to CELEX: the database of European Community law', European Access, No 3, June 1989, pp. 29-32.
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Hensley, C. 'European Community databases: online to Europe', Database, 12, No 2, December 1989, pp. 45-52.
Marcella, R. et al. 'The provision of European information by public libraries in the UK', Library Management, 18, No 1, 1997, pp. 7-41.
Nurcombe, V. ed. Accessing EU documents: new initiatives and developments from the EU institutions: proceedings of a one day seminar held in London at CILIP, 9 June 2003, organised jointly with the European Information Association. SCOOP, 2003.
Williamson, R. 'Context - a decade of growth'. European Information, No 1, January 1999, pp. 13-15.
See also Database column published in European Access and written by T. Hanson (1989-92), K. Goodall and A. Inglis (1992-97), and G. Hudson (1998-2002).
Also 'Developments in European information issues' by G. Hudson published in KnowEurope database (2003- ) (subsequently European Sources Online).
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[1] Advanced Search was made available in mid-August 2006.
