  A novel method to extract the $B(E1)$ strength of a weakly bound nucleus from
experimental Coulomb dissociation data is proposed. The method makes use of
continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) calculations, in which both
nuclear and Coulomb forces are taken into account to all orders. This is a
crucial advantage with respect to the standard procedure based on the
Equivalent Photon Method (EPM) which does not properly take into account
nuclear distortion, higher order coupling effects, or Coulomb-nuclear
interference terms. The procedure is applied to the $^{11}$Be nucleus using two
sets of available experimental data at different energies, for which seemingly
incompatible $B(E1)$ have been reported using the EPM. We show that the present
procedure gives consistent $B(E1)$ strengths, thus solving the aforementioned
long-standing discrepancy between the two measurements.
