Who or what is DORIE?

Have you ever heard about DORIE?

• No, it is not the wife of Commission President Barroso!
• No, it is not the Dutch Open Register for Independent Experts!
• No, it is not another useless agency of the European Union!

DORIE, as I have learnt today (thank you FAZ), is a Commission database of original documents (starting from the early days and reaching almost to the present times) related to institutional affairs of the EU. These documents - from internal memos and speeches to regular files and official letters - are scanned and contain original notes and remarks in handwriting.

Although it may take some time until all relevant documents are listed, some of you who - like me - are interested in little details and personalised original sources can already find interesting little precious things neither the web in general, nor national archives, nor other EU databases are providing so far.

The only two disadvantages I see for now are the size of the documents (scanned, PDF), and the search function that is not very comfortable. But maybe at least the latter will be refined in the future.

Especially historians and political scientists might be quite happy to discover this tool...