College is almost back, and so it's the time of year when guides, guides and more guides start popping up to help students on their next step in life. Two to hand this week are Flying the Coop, a slender little offering from the Ossory Youth Service and the Roscommon Regional Youth Service, published with the support of FAS. It provides basic, but succinct, information on different colleges, advice on staying safe when away from home, details of helplines and help agencies and items about accommodation and budgeting. The booklet, which fits easily in a back pocket, is available free from youth information services.

A far more weighty tome is The "Socrates" Programme, A Step Towards A European University, edited by Professor John Kelly, former registrar of UCD, and Professor Konstadinos Siomos. It contains 183 pages in English and 206 pages in Greek and covers various areas of the European Union's Socrates education programme; the Erasmus and Lingua programmes as they applied to Greece; European university and higher education strategies after the year 2000 and the operation of the various EU education programmes in a number of countries.

A pocket guide it's not, but it does contain very useful information for those interested in the development of education in Europe. It's sponsored by, among others, the European Commission.