Born in Hamburg in Germany and of Greek nationality, Angeliki has led a truly European life. She grew up in Brussels, studied in Paris and London, and spent an Erasmus semester in Seville. And when she joined the unit, she was just celebrating her 10th work anniversary with the European Commission, having worked in the multilingual environment of the Directorate General for Translation and the Spokespersons’ Service in DG COMM.

And she gets rewarded for her good service as the face behind the mailbox Comm-info-publications@ec.europa.eu   “What I appreciate most about my new job is the fact that I get to see the results of my work immediately, as soon as people receive their order and write back to thank me,” Angeliki explains. Indeed, as Angeliki soon found out, the ordering system for DG COMM publications was not yet optimised for ease and facility. In principle, Representations and Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs) receive the publications they order by means of a survey before a new title is produced and they are also registered with the EU Publications Office (OP) as 'privileged users', so they can get more copies by placing bulk orders directly via EU Bookshop. But how bulk is bulk? “The present maximum figures might be too low, as we found out when discussing the issue at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the EDICs in Brussels recently. We are discussing changes at the moment”, explains Angeliki’s boss, section head Morten Espelund.

The cooperation with her colleagues at the Publications Office in Luxembourg is “the cherry on the cake”, Angeliki says. She really appreciates all the efforts the distribution team there is making to help any time she needs their advice or expertise. Marina Tătărâm, here on the left in a photo with Angeliki, is the member of the OP’s team with whom she co-operates most closely. When an EDIC or a Representation needs an ID to become a 'privileged user' it is Marina who arranges it. When a large order from an EDIC or a Representation reaches the OP, Marina discusses it with Angeliki. And she does the same with the other author services within the EU institutions. “We offer an individual service for special and complicated questions, in particular for Representations”, Morten Espelund adds. But only as far as DG COMM publications are concerned, Espelund cautions.

Was there anything her customers should know and do to make her life easier?  There is. “When ordering, please use the catalogue number: if the first letters are not 'NA', then it is not a DG COMM title and you should contact the relevant Directorate-General or, better still, use the OP-RELAIS@publications.europa.eu  functional mailbox, Angeliki suggests. “And please mention the full postal delivery address, complete with postal code and a contact phone number with the international country code”.  And everybody should subscribe to the monthly Publications Update newsletter that has the latest information on the publications that are currently available.