IN THIS DOCUMENT: Scope Statement Standing Committee Membership Budget Mailing Lists Sponsorship Conferences Concluding Remarks

Library and Research Services for Parliaments Section

Annual Report
September 2001 - September 2002

Scope Statement

In accordance with the mission and objectives of IFLA, the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments recognises the central role that information must play in the effective functioning of a democratic legislature. In representing parliamentary libraries, the Section encompasses parliamentary and legislative libraries that provide information and documentation services to Parliamentarians and also those that include a research and analysis service. These services are provided to national legislatures in unitary states and to both national and regional legislatures in countries with a federal system of government. The activities undertaken by those who provide library and research services for parliaments range from the identification, location, interpretation, synthesis, and timely delivery of information to in-depth analysis and development of choices for the legislature.

In addition to the library skills of acquisition, indexing, reference work and the use of information technology, there is often a need for subject and disciplinary expertise, significant presentational skills and an understanding of legislative procedures and official publications. The concept of service to members of the legislature, the primary clientele, is fundamental to parliamentary libraries and research services.

Standing Committee

Chair/Treasurer:
Margareta Brundin, Parliamentary Librarian

Secretary:
Marialyse Délano Serrano

Information Co–ordinator:
Eleni Mitrakou

Members of the Standing Committee 2001–2002

Corresponding Members:

Membership

Budget

The Section received for year 2002 an amount of 610 Euro from IFLA to cover the costs of running the Section’s activities. The allowance was spent on the rent of a venue at Baird Hall, Glasgow for the Management Workshop Day (total cost £593.39). A contribution of 139.30 Euro from the Divisions budget covered the cost for IFLA entrance fee for Professor Grönlund to lecture at the Open Meeting. The Swedish Riksdag sponsored the printing and distribution of the Section’s Newsletter as well as part of the cost for renting Baird Hall (220.91 Euro).

Mailing Lists

the listserv for all members of the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments continues to serve adequately for communications between members, for information sharing and for promoting conference activities available on the Section’s web site and on IFLANET.

From August 2001 to August 2002, approximately 400 messages were accepted from Section members on IFLAPARL2. Peak periods were noted in pre and post IFLA conference periods again this year as it was last year. An average of 15% of other incoming messages was rejected, from individuals and or companies, for example pharmaceuticals, wishing to advertise products. Generally, there has been a decrease in messages due in part to the transfer of the Listserv support from the National Library in Canada to INIST in France. The transition period was from November 2001 to February 2002. Members were added to INIST automatically in February 2002.

At this point IFLAPARL2 has 120 members. This indicates an increase in membership from 90 members last year in August 2001. The additional members come from national parliamentary associations such as APLIC in Canada and individuals whose Library is already an institutional member of the Section. It has become apparent from the increased membership of the listserv, that email communications are more widely available to Section members globally.

Compared to IFLAPARL2, IFLAPARL, the listserv used by Standing Committee members only, continues to be used very moderately. Also, those few messages that were sent to IFLAPARL - approximately 25 messages – in the time frame indicated, were also sent to IFLAPARL2.

(Statistics prepared by Pierrette Landry, Listserv manager, Library of the Parliament of Canada)

Sponsorship

For IFLA 2002, the Section prepared letters of request for support for approximately 60 members of the Section including some Standing Committee members. All members of the Section received a personal invitation letter from the Chair.

The Section wishes to express its gratitude to Mr. Dick Toornstraa and the European Union for the financial support that the EU have provided to the Section to the project of developing the Section’s own web site. It will in the future include an expanded World Directory with facts about the different Parliaments democracy–building activities.

The Section is equally grateful to the organisations of CIDA, CANADA and SIDA, SWEDEN and IFLA for the support to individual members of the Section to attend the pre–conference and the main conference in 2002.

Conferences

18^th Annual International Conference of Parliamentary Librarians 14–15^th August

Prior to Glasgow 2002, the Section held its 18^th Annual International Conference of Parliamentary Librarians on 14–15 August 2002 in London, United Kingdom. The attendance was all time high with 125 people from many different countries. The conference was hosted in an excellent way by the House of Commons Library as a pre-conference in conjunction with the 68^th Meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

London conference overview

On the first evening of the conference August 14, 2002, after the registration and reception of the delegates in the recently inaugurated and very comfortable Portcullis House at Victoria Embankment, the participants of the conference were given a very interesting tour of the Palace of Westminster and the Member’s Library. The evening terminated with a grand reception at the Terrace Marquee by the Thames.

The conference continued on August 15 in the Atlee Suite in Portcullis House. The theme for the morning session was a presentation of the House of Commons Library today and tomorrow chaired by Keith Cuninghame, Director of Resources in House of Commons Library. The keynote speaker Neil Gerrard, MP, gave a vivid description how it is to meet the information and research requirements of a Member of Parliament. Priscilla Baines, Librarian of the House of Commons Library gave an interesting view of the challenges facing the Library today, and Rob Clements, Director of the Research Services, explained how research services have changed, is changing and will change in the future. The evolution philosophy of the Parliament and Constitution Centre was explained by Cris Sears, and Helen Holden, Reference and research section, described the changing needs of Members for reference information and the ways of meeting those needs. Finally Betty McInnes, Director of Information systems presented the PIMS system (Parliamentary Information Management Services).

A panel with all the speakers concluded the morning session.

After an excellent lunch sponsored by House of Commons the afternoon session on Intranets and parliamentary libraries began. Edward Wood gave an overview of the services on the House of Commons Library Intranet. Gro Sandgrind from the Norwegian Storting gave an interesting presentation of the library’s work with their Intranet. Margareta Brundin described how news and newspapers are disseminated via the Intranet in the Swedish Parliament. Anita Dudina, Latvia, vividly explained the problems of setting up an Intranet in a new Parliament. Tatiana Krasovec and Natasa Glavnik from the Slovenian Parliament gave a detailed presentation of their Intranet solution. Finally the speakers discussed the future of Intranet services chaired by Betty McInnes from House of Commons. Priscilla Baines concluded the conference and was applauded by the chair and the participants for an excellent and interesting program.

The pre–conference terminated with a hospitable reception at Tate Britain art gallery with an opportunity to view the JMW Turner galleries.

Most of the delegates then continued by various means of transport to Glasgow, Scotland, to the

On August 16 Margareta Brundin and Marialyse Delano Serrano, the Chair and the Secretary of the section, participated in the meeting of the Co-ordinating Board of the Division of General Research Libraries.

The first activity on the Section’s program in Glasgow was the

64 participants assembled for the annual Standing Committee meeting in a too small a room in the main conference venue. The size of the room and the want of chairs forced most of the members of the section to sit on the floor during the whole Committee meeting. This and the want of all audio–visual equipment made it a challenge to chair the meeting, but the participants maintained their composure during the whole assembly. Many interesting and important subjects were discussed. Minutes from the SC Meeting can be found in the Circular Newsletter Vol. 21, No. 1–2 at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s3/news/new0103e.pdf.

The same evening the tradition of a section dinner was reinstated. More than 100 librarians and researchers gathered in Saint Andrew’s in the Square in Calton, Glasgow for a nice meal together.

The Research Forum attracted 86 participants from all around the world, librarians as well as researchers. Organiser of this interesting seminar was Bill Robinson, CRS, USA.

The first part of the day included a paper on Budget Analysis for Parliaments by Wieslaw Staskiewics from the Polish Parliament. The paper was commented by Anna Zatkalikova, the Slovak Parliament, Marianne Bjernbäck, the Swedish Riksdag and Ahmed Ali M. Al–Mukhaini, Oman. June Verrier, Australia, Bob Gardner, Canada and John P. Power, Northern Ireland discussed cheap and effective needs assessments during a roundtable.

After lunch a paper on the always up–to–date topic "Libraries and Research Service: Colleagues, Clients and Collaborators" was presented by Margareta Brundin. Marianne Bjernbäck, Sweden, Dulce Maria Liahut Baldomar, Mexico and Cristiane de Almeida Maia from Brazil commented upon the paper.

A roundtable on the theme "Dealing with Clients in a Political Environment" with the participation of Janet Seaton, Scotland, Kosi Kedem, MP, Ghana, Priscilla Baines, UK and Renata Blagniene, Lithuania followed. The Research Forum finalised with the paper "Working with Committees" by Hugh Finsten, Canada. Comments to this paper were given by Moira Frazer, New Zealand, Andres Siplane, Estonia and Eugen Gasnas, Romania.

The Research Day has indeed after just a few years become a very appreciated component of the Section’s program.

The Section on Library and Research services for Parliaments has for many years arranged highly rated open meetings. They normally attract people from many other sections. The theme "Future trends: e-government and net democracy; what it is and what is the role of the library" enticed 152 recorded participants. According to the secretary there were many more that did not sign - she counted more than 300 at a given moment -- people came and went during this open meeting.

Åke Grönlund, Assistant Professor, PhD from the University of Umeå in Sweden challenged many of the listeners with his views on Parliaments information on the web. Archie Kirkwood, MP from House of Commons, UK presented a member’s visions and doubts on e–democracy and e–government. Finally Richard Paré, Head of the Parliamentary Library of Canada, showed how e–democracy affected the work of the Library.

The session was moderated brilliantly by Cris de Almeida Maia from Camara dos Deputados in Brazil.

Management workshop August 20^th

The Management Workshop, a full day event, was held at the Baird Hall, University of Strathclyde Graduate School of Business in Glasgow. 6 workshops were held, all of them repeated, which made 12 sessions in all, 4 at each time slot. 115 persons attended the workshops. The following subjects, suggested by the members of the Section, were discussed:

Workshop 1: Staff of the Future; a Democracy Perspective (Eva Falk)
Workshop 2: Marketing of Parliamentary Information and Library Services (Sara Parker)
Workshop 3: Client Liaison Program (Moira Frasier)
Workshop 4: Assessment, Quality and Performance Indicators (Anita Dudina)
Workshop 5: Electronic Collection Development (Bernhard Vansteeland)
Workshop 6: SWOT Analysis; the Case of the Section (Donna Scheeder)

12 participants from the Section acting as rapporteurs gave oral reports at the end of the Management Day. These reports were later published in the Newsletter.

The rent for the venues at Baird Hall was paid by the Section.

In the morning August 21 120 delegates from the Section entered the buses from Glasgow to Edinburgh sponsored by the Scottish Parliament. The visit to this new and interesting Parliament became the highlight during the Glasgow Conference.

The group was welcomed in the Parliament Chamber, Assembly Hall at the Mound in Edinburgh. After introductory remarks by Murray Tosh, MSP (Deputy Presiding Officer) and Paul Grice (Clerk/Chief Executive) the Heads of Library Service from Scotland, Janet Seaton, Northern Ireland, John Power and the Welsh Assembly, John Grimes gave opening presentations on the motion "That parliamentary democracies get the information services they deserve". After the taking of a group photograph Fiona McLeod, MSP gave a Member of Parliament’s view of how information services contribute to parliamentary democracy. A very vivid debate among the delegates followed. Paul Grice then summed up the debate and invited everyone to a lunch at the Parliamentary Cafeteria and Member’s Lounge.

After lunch the participants had the opportunity to visit the Information Centre in the Parliament Headquarters as well as the Visitor Centre in Committee Chambers. The Scottish Parliament then invited the delegates to four interesting round table discussions on the following themes:

* Promoting the Parliament
* Reaching Language communities
* Services to committees
* Services to all ages

The final part of the program offered a view of the new parliamentary building site at Holyrood. Buses took participants to the Holyrood Visitor Centre for information on the project and there were possibilities to join a short guided tour to the building site. The day at the Scottish Parliament terminated with a reception generously sponsored by the hosts.

For those lucky delegates who had got tickets to the Edinburgh Tattoo in the evening the visit to Edinburgh finished in a splendid way.

Concluding Remarks

According to many comments from Section members in attendance and many letters, both the conference in House of Commons and the Glasgow program were very appreciated. Many participants especially liked to have a special subject, such as Intranet questions, discussed during the pre–conference.

It is with great worry that the Section has learnt that IFLA in the future will reduce the Section’s time slots and also charge the Section 100 Euro for arranging the pre–conference. The pre–conference is totally sponsored by one Parliament at a considerable cost. It is impossible for the Section to add to this cost. It will put a strain on the possibilities to arrange off–site meetings during the main conference. The Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments is a very homogeneous group with special interests, and the value of a Research Seminar and a Management Workshop for this group is great. If IFLA HQ will be limiting the possibilities for the Section to arrange these meetings in the future, alternative solutions outside IFLA must be considered.

The Section would like to thank the teams at the House of Commons Library and the Scottish Parliament for the splendid organisation of the conferences in London and Edinburgh. Without the commitment and dedicated efforts of these teams, speakers and organisers of the Open Meeting and Research Forum, leaders of workshops, rapporteurs and many other individuals the Section’s activities would not have been so successful. Thank you!

Prepared by: Margareta Brundin
Chair of Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments