ABSTRACT
The British Library's Official Publications and Social Sciences Reading Room was finally open in the new British Library building in St Pancras at the end of June 1999. The service was operated by the Social Policy Information Service which had been established in 1996. Provision of European Union (EU) information was marked most notably by the increasing move to electronic dissemination, initially through command language dial-up services, later using CD-ROM format and more recently via the internet. Alongside the technical changes a number of key policy developments in Europe had a major impact on both the range and content of the information as well as the information providers themselves. In the United Kingdom the Commission London Office organized a conference of EU information providers at Stoke Rochford in 1993. Gallup surveys for the European Commission investigated how people found EU information and highlighted the value of strengthening provision via the public library system.
