§ Mr. Douglasasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will itemise the total expenditure by his Department on information services on the following basis: In House, UKCIS, INSPEC, BIOSIS, CAB, COMPEN-DEX, British Library and others.
§ Mr. Heseltine[pursuant to his reply, 22 July 1980, c. 182–83]: The library information services are a joint service to the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport. They provide information on all aspects of both Departments' work by the use of published and unpublished sources.
It is not possible in the time allowed to provide a cost breakdown of the library, publications, information and 380W international activities. The estimated cost of the departmental library services based on the headquarters libraries is approximately £800,000 per annum including translation and computer retrieval services (with access to INSPEC, BIOSIS, COMPENDEX and other data bases.) This provides over 100 libraries and service points dealing with reference enquiries, loans, circulations, information dissemination, retrieval and referral.