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 2002 - September 2003

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

Standing Committee Executives 2002-2003

Chair/Treasurer:
Margareta Brundin, Parliamentary Librarian
Head of Division for Knowledge Management
The Riksdag Library, Parliament of Sweden
SE-100 12 Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: margareta.brundin@riksdagen.se
Phone: + 46 8 7864151; Fax: + 46 8 7865871

Secretary:
Marialyse Délano Serrano
Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile
Huérfanos 1117, 2 piso
Santiago, Chile
E-mail: mdelano@biblioteca.congreso.cl
Phone: +56 2 2701700; Fax: +56 2 2701747

Information Co-ordinator:
Eleni Mitrakou
Library of the Greek Chamber of Deputies, Parliament Building
10021 Athens, Greece
E-mail: mitrakou@parliament.gr
Mobile phone: +30 972 0 12208, Fax: +30 210 7231858

Members of the Standing Committee 2002-2003

Corresponding Members:

Membership

Budget

Mailing Lists

IFLAPARL2, the listserv for all present and past members of the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments, again this year, has proven to be a very useful mechanism to create a dialogue between the Section's members from all over the world. Several have been able ask for and obtain statistics from different parliamentary libraries by way of the listserv that have been useful for research, analysis and comparative studies of benefit to all Section members. Information sharing, promoting conference activities, providing links to conference papers on IFLANET continue to be the main thrust of activity of IFLAPARL2.

IFLAPARL, the listserv used only by Standing Committee members, continues to be used very moderately.

From August 2002 to August 2003, approximately 1,000 messages were posted to IFLAPARL2. In these messages, there has been an increase from 15% to 50% of messages that have to be rejected as they emanate from individuals and or companies wishing to advertise products totally unrelated to the Section's mandate and activities.

There has been an increase in messages from members from 400 last year to 500 for the period in question this year (August 2002 and August 2003).

At this point IFLAPARL2 maintains 120 members. Approximately 10 requests have been received from non-members of the Section to adhere to the listserv. Each request is referred to the executive of the Section.

Comments from listserv members on the use of the listserv would be welcome by contacting Pierrette Landry at landrp@parl.gc.ca.

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

Sponsorship

For IFLA 2003, the Section prepared letters of request for support for approximately 75 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 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 Congress Library in Chile will do the work on the new web site.

The Section is equally grateful to the organisations of CIDA, CANADA and SIDA, SWEDEN for the support to individual members of the Section to attend the pre-conference and the main conference in 2003.

Conferences

Prior to Berlin 2003, the Section held its 19^th Annual International Conference of Parliamentary Librarians on 29–30 August 2002 in Prague, Czech Republic. The attendance was very good, especially from the East European countries, with around 100 people from many different countries. The conference was hosted in an excellent way by the Library of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in form of a pre-conference in conjunction with the 69^th Meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Berlin.

The theme of the pre–conference was "Parliamentary Library, Research and Information Services of Central Europé" with the subtheme: "Parliamentary Information Services with Special Focus on the Process of Implementation of the European Union Law by the Associated Countries".

On the first evening of the conference July 29, 2003, after the registration and the reception of the delegates in the beautiful Wallenstein hall of the Senate, Mr. P. Kynstetr, Secretary General of the Chamber of Deputies, and Mr. P. Pelant, Secretary General of the Senate, gave a speech of welcome. A gift in the form of a book was presented to the Section, and the Ensemble Martinu performed a concert with Slavonic Dances by Antonin Dvorak. The participants in the conference were then given a very interesting tour of the historical palaces of the Senate, and after the guided tour a splendid buffet dinner in the garden of the Wallenstein Palace was served.

The conference continued on July 30 with registration of the delegates at the Chamber of Deputies. The morning session started with an important ceremony: William Robinson of the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, USA, and Dr. Ernst Kohl, former Head of the Bundestag Library, were rewarded by the Czech Parliament for their tireless efforts to support library and research services in the Czech Republic and other East European countries. Donna Scheeder from Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress received the award on behalf of William Robinson in his absence.

The program started with a speech by V. Sklenar on the synchronisation of the metadata in the legislative process between the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament. After this L. Fajtak and S. Dzurjanin gave a very good description about the legislative tracking system in the National Council of the Slovak Republic. E. Malackova and P. Mraz described the use of the Eurovoc Thesaurus in the National Council of the Slovak Republic. A. Lhotska and K. Zigmundova talked about the use of the same thesaurus in the Parliament of the Czech Republic. After discussions and a coffee break E. Malackova spoke on the theme "Partner Libraries of the Chancellery of the National Council of the Slovak Republic". R. Hamplova and P. Houdek continued with an interesting paper on the joint Czech and Slovak digital parliamentary library. A. Zatkalikova gave a presentation the Parliamentary Research Service and the co-operation among European Parliaments through the ECPRD followed by J. Syllova, who described the types of work done by the Parliamentary Institute during the period of the harmonisation of the Czech Legal Order with the EU/EC law. The Office of the Chamber of Deputies then offered a delicious lunch.

K. Haraszti was the first speaker after lunch with a description of the first twelve years of the information services for MP:s in the Library of the Hungarian Parliament. Then B. Csako talked about the Library of the Hungarian Parliament as a Depository Library of EU in Hungary and the EU-related information support for MP–s. I.B. Kelemen gave a good insight into how information specialists of the Library of the Hungarian Parliament were delegated to work in Standing Committees. I. Horvath followed with her paper on the BRIDGE Series in the Library of the Hungarian Parliament. W. Staskiewicz gave a very interesting report on the role of Parliamentary Research Services in the process of implementation of the EU law in Poland. W. Kulisiewicz continued with a talk on pluralism versus monism with the Polish experiences on institutional models of providing EU information to MP–s. A. Dziubecki presented the Polish Senate’s scope, forms and methods of informing MP–s about the European Union. Finally the conference ended with a very charming wrap up session on the history of the region by Elisabeth Dietrich-Schulz from Austria. The Chamber of Deputies hosted a wonderful closing reception in the evening of July 30.

On Thursday the 31^st of July most of the delegates departed on a bus tour for transit to Berlin, Germany. The group took a two hours break at the beautiful German City of Dresden.

The rest of the participants were offered a guided walking tour of Prague before returning to their home countries or travelling individually to Berlin.

On August 1 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 Berlin was the

62 participants assembled for the annual Standing Committee meeting in a room in the main conference venue. Also this year the room for the SC Meeting was small and some participants had to stand for the whole meeting. Many interesting and important subjects were discussed. Minutes from the SC Meeting will be found in the Circular Newsletter Vol. 22, No. 1–2.

The same evening, a continuation of the tradition of a section dinner took place. More than 100 librarians and researchers gathered in the Hotel Unter den Linden to enjoy a very nice Italian buffet dinner together.

The Research Day attracted 94 participants from all around the world, librarians as well as researchers. Organisers of the interesting seminars were Hugh Finsten, Library of Parliament, Ottawa, Canada and Bob Gardner, Ontario Legislative Library, Canada.

The first part of the Research Day was dedicated to papers and discussions about trends, ideas and innovations in research services. Under the leadership of Bob Gardner the speakers Nola Adcock, Parliamentary Library, Australia, Keith Cuninghame, House of Commons Library, UK, Brit Floistad, Parliamentary Research Service, Norway, Richard Paré, Library of Parliament, Canada and Iain Watt, ECPRD, European Parliament, presented new trends and ideas from their respective organisations.

The second part of the day discussed how to get the most out of the resources we already have in the respective Research Departments. Chair for the session was Hugh Finsten, Library of Parliament, Canada and the Speakers Katalin Haraszti, Parliamentary Library, Hungary, Gloria Sarku, Parliamentary Library, Ghana and Jacob Warshavsky, Knesset Research Service, Israel, who described the work and activities of their Parliaments.

After lunch Tesfaye Aberra, Research and Documentation Centre, House of People’s Representatives, Ethiopia, Wafaa Abdel Elah, Research Service, People’s Assembly, Egypt, Jindriska Syllova, Parliamentary Institute, Czech Republic and June Verrier, Parliamentary Library, Australia under the chairmanship of Hugh Finsten gave their views on how to manage their "Political Environments" when it comes to culture, constraints and controversies. June Verrier’s paper "Sucessful delivery of professional and non–partisan services in a partisan environment: On Socks and Bees and everything in between: Navigating the Political Environment – Culture, Constraints and Controversies" was subsequently selected by IFLA for inclusion in the december issue of the IFLA Journal.

The last part of the Research Day dealt with the subject "How to build continous innovation". Tembi Mtine, National Assembly Library of Zambia, Denis Oag, Scottish Parliament and Donna Scheeder, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, USA, had thrown themselves into this interesting area. Tembi Mtines paper was read by Bob Gardner, as she was unable to come to Berlin.

The Research Day has become a very important part of the Section’s program, and as usual it was a great success. The program received attention also from many participants from outside the Section.

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. This year only two hours were given to each section. The theme was "The Challenge of Change – the Experience of Three German Speaking Libraries".

Marga Coing, vibrant leader of the German Bundestag Library gave the listeners an interesting insight in the problems and solutions adapted by the Library when moving a parliamentary library from one city to another. The planning of the move has been going on for many years, and Ms. Coing talked about the period between 1990 to 2003. She came to the conclusion that the only constant is change and that librarians have to embrace this fact.

Elisabeth Dietrich–Schulz from the Austrian Parliament gave a fascinating talk about how the Austrian Parliamentary Library became a Library on the Net and how her library stepped into the "Computer Age".

Ernst Frischknecht, the Parliament of Switzerland, gave an interesting description of the work of the Documentation Centre of the Swiss Federal Assembly and how the staff there provides knowledge in a very complex environment.

The session was moderated brilliantly by Gro Sandgrind, Librarian of the Library of the Storting, Norway. All papers from the Open Meeting are published on the IFLA web.

On the morning of August 5 around 100 delegates from the Section visited the German Bundesrat in Berlin. The group was welcomed in the Bundesrat plenary chamber by Mrs. Dr. Teske. Dr Teske gave a speech on the organisation and procedures of the Bundesrat as a constitutional organ and representative of the interests of the Länder, or Federal States. After the speech the participants were offered a guided tour of the Bundesrat building, a beautiful building where old and modern history blend. The tour provided insight into the history, architecture and art of the building, which previously housed the upper and lower chambers of Prussia. Finally the participants were offered a reception.

After a lunch break the group gathered again in front of the building of the German Bundestag. After some welcoming words Engineer Mr. Kusus and Ministerial Counsellor Ms. Coing gave a very interesting speech on the form and functioning of the new library of the German Bundestag in the Marie–Elisabeth–Lüders building. After a short coffee break MP Mrs Patrizia Robbe described the functioning and procedures of the German Parliament and finally the participants were divided in several groups for guided tours through the magnificent buildings of the German Bundestag. The tours ended with a reception hosted by the Secretary General of the Bundestag. The Secretary General Mr. Zeh made a speech which was much appreciated before the evening continued with a magnificent dinner for the delegates underneath the Dome of the old Reichstag building.

The visit to the German Bundesrat and the German Bundestag indeed became the highlights of the Berlin Conference.

Management workshop August 7^th

The Management Workshop, a full day event, was held at the Humboldt University in Berlin. The workshop opened with an appearance by the Japanese delegate Hisae Umeda playing the piano of the main hall in a quite wonderful way.

6 workshops were held during the day. This made 12 sessions in all, 4 at each time slot. 116 persons attended the workshops. The following subjects, suggested by the members of the Section, were discussed:

Workshop 1:
Organisational structures; how do they influence the library?
Leader: Richard Paré, Library of Parliament, Canada
Rapporteurs: Sara Parker, Missouri State Library, USA;
Keith Cuninghame, House of Commons, UK

Workshop 2:
User education; a pedagogical challenge
Leader: Rob Brian, Parliament of New South Wales, Australia
Rapporteurs: Eva Falk, The Riksdag Library, Sweden
Hisae Umeda, Diet Library, Japan

Workshop 3:
Change Management: user, environment and librarians
Leader: Tuula H. Laaksovirta, Parliament of Finland
Rapporteurs: Anita Dudina, Latvian Parliament
Renata Blagniene, Lithuanian Parliament

Workshop 4:
Consortia and Co-operative acquisitions
Leader: Jan Keukens, Parliament of the Netherlands
Rapporteur: Charles Brown, Parliament of Ghana
Katalin Haraszti, Parliamentary Library, Hungary

Workshop 5:
Special Collections Management
Leader: Eleni Mitrakou, Hellenic Parliament, Greece
Rapporteur: Cristiane de Almeida Maia, Congreso de Brazil
Soledad Ferreiro, Library of Congress, Chile

Workshop 6:
Knowledge Management in a Parliamentary Environment
Leader: Donna Scheeder, Library of Congress, USA
Rapporteur: Sandra Fine, Israel Democracy Institute,
Yoon Jung Kim, National Assembly Library, Republic of Korea

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

The rent for the venues at the Humboldt University and coffee for the delegates was paid by the Section.

The second Standing Committee Meeting was held at the Conference venue on August 8. Only the Standing Committee members were called to this meeting, but nobody belonging to the Section was locked out if they wanted to follow the discussions of the Committee. The primary issue for the meeting was next years conferences and the new rules for the arranging of meetings during IFLA Conferences, which would mean that the Section’s activities must cease almost completely. This would erase the work of the Section in a very short time. The meeting tried to find new forms for the work of the Section. Minutes from this SC Meeting will be found in the Circular Newsletter Vol. 22, No. 1–2.

Concluding Remarks

According to many comments from Section members in attendance and many letters, both the conference in the Czech Parliament and the Section's program in Berlin were very much appreciated. Many participants especially liked to have the possibility to stay in the same hotel, as this makes the net working activities - one of the most important activities of our Section - easier to achieve.

It is with great concern that the Section has learnt that IFLA in the future will reduce the Section's time slots to a two hour Open Meeting. 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 limits the possibilities for the Section to arrange these meetings in the future, alternative solutions outside IFLA must be considered. The charging of the Section of 100 Euro for arranging the pre-conference is another strike against the Section. The pre-conference is totally sponsored and organised by one Parliament at considerable cost with no input from IFLA at all. It is impossible for the Section to add to this cost. Moreover, the imposition of this fee strains resources required to arrange off-site meetings during the main conference.

The Section would like to thank the teams at the Czech Parliament and the German Bundestag for the splendid organisation of the conferences in Prague and in Berlin. 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
Former Chair of Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments