Parliamentary Library and Information Services of Nepal

Abstract

The beginning of the present day Parliamentary Library can be traced back to 1953 when it started as a Record Keeping Section. In 1960, it was changed to Advisory Assembly Library and till 1990 it was known as Rastriya Panchayat Library. After the restoration of multi-party democracy, with the establishment of the parliament, the library was designated as Research and Library Section, opening doors to different access to research in library operation and information sharing technology.

The present library at the parliament is accessible to all members of parliament, secretariat officials, officials from various other ministries and researchers that look for references in different fields of studies. Books, documents and important information have been computerised since 1991. With the aid of a computer on-line-service management system, the library has been providing quick and qualitative services to the users since then. The CDS/ISIS database documentation system developed by UNESCO has been in use in the library automation system.

The library looks forward to an information sharing system among the libraries/information centres within Nepal, once a net-work is established in the country. Further, it is planning to share the legislative information among the SAARC countries with access to hooking up to the information sharing systems developed/used within the SAARC countries.

The beginning of the present day Parliamentary Library can be traced back to 1953 when it started as a Record Keeping Section. In 1960, it was changed to Advisory Assembly Library and till 1990 it was known as Rastriya Panchayat Library. It was located on the floor above the present Lower House (House of Representatives) auditorium. After the restoration of multi-party democracy, with the establishment of the parliament, the library was designated as Research and Library Section, opening doors to different access to research in library operation and information sharing technology. At present the library, as a separate section, is located on the second floor of the Parliament Secretariat building, occupying eleven rooms.

Since its founding, the library has been expanded with an increase in the number of staff members, books and other reference materials. This section at present has adopted, as its future plan, the idea to start research programmes.

Staffing of the Library

In parliamentary affairs, the secretariat of the parliament is commonly known as the main supporting organization which is established under the constitution of the country. In order to accomplish successfully the important parliamentary tasks, including the operation of legislative procedure, orienting new legislators, providing advice, setting frameworks for debates, interpreting and transmitting the opinion of the executive to the members, the secretariat plays a significant role. In addition to this, the Parliament Secretariat is responsible for facilitating the imminent needs of the members through its staffing in a competent manner.

In the above context the bicameral Parliament of Nepal possesses a common secretariat to provide all possible legislative, administrative, legal and information services. The secretariat is a permanent institution established under Article 66 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990, and the Parliamentary Service Rules, 1991.

The Parliament Secretariat is headed by a Secretary-General who is assisted by the Secretaries of the two Houses (The House of Representatives, HOR, and the National Assembly, NA) of Parliament as well as many other staff members working in various functional divisions and subdivisions. The present organization structure of the Secretariat is shown in the Annex below.

The Secretary-General of Parliament is appointed by His Majesty the King on the joint consultation of the Speaker of HOR and the Chairman of NA. Similarly the Secretaries of both Houses are appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the presiding officers of the respective Houses. The recruitment and conditions of services of other employees are governed by the Rules of the Public Service Commission and the Civil Service Act. At present the secretariat functions through 32 sections under the direct supervision of eight different divisional heads in which 312 staff members serve with complete political impartiality. They are involved in varied works and provide support services for the procedural matters of the Houses, Security, Housekeeping, Information, Accounting, Reporting and many other works in the Chamber and in the Committees.

Organization and Staffing of the Parliamentary Library

All the permanent staff members of both Houses of parliament belong to a single organization called the Parliament Secretariat. Some of the mid-level and lower level staff are working on secondment to the secretariat coming from different departments of the government ministries. The entire staff is allocated to the various divisions and sections of the secretariat.

From the perspective of the functional relationships the working divisions are placed in eight groups (as outlined below) in which different sections are classified according to the workload of the divisions concerned. While maintaining the chain of command between the sections and divisions they are categorized and linked with the similar nature of work. The working divisions which are directly related to each House and its respective subsidiary bodies fall under the authority of the secretary of the respective House. Similarly those which are established for joint purposes fall under the direct supervision of the Secretary General.

Organization Structure

1) Legislative Division, HOR:

1. Table Section
   
2. Question Section
   
3. Verbatim Section

2) Committee Division, HOR:

1. Finance Committee Section
   
2. Public Accounts Committee Section
   
3. Foreign Relations and Human Rights Committee Section
   
4. Natural Resources and Means and Environment Committee Section
   
5. Population and Social Committee Section
   
6. Interior Committee Section
   
7. Development and Communication Committee Section

3) Legislative Division, NA:

1. Table Section
   
2. Question Section
   
3. Verbatim Section

4) Committee Division, NA:

1. Remote Area Committee Section
   
2. Delegated Legislation and Government Assurances Committee Section
   
3. Special Committee Section
   

5) Parliamentary Information Division (Common Service):

1. Press and Public Relations Section
   
2. Foreign Relations Section
   
3. Printing and Publication Section
   
4. Research and Library Section
   
5. Computer Section

6) Administrative Division (Common Service):

1. Personnel Administration Section
   
2. Accounts Section
   
3. Parliamentary Service Management Section
   
4. Parliamentary Study and Training Section
   
5. Internal Administration Section
   
6. Technical Section (Electrical)
   
7. Technical Section (Electronics)

7) Law Division (Common Service):

1. Legal Advisory Section
   
2. Bill Section

8) Sergeant-At-Arms Section (Common Service):

1. General Security Section
   
2. House Keeping Section

Library Staff

The Parliament Library is supported by a total of seven permanent staff. Two are university graduates, two are library management trained staff and the remaining three include two senior clerks and an attendant.

Research and Library Section

Research and library components are combined together in one section with a view to making the functionary unit more integrated and coordinated. Hence, provisionally on the basis of urgency a chief research officer's post and a chief librarian's post were created to cater for the services from one unit. Currently these two different units of one section are providing the basic information to the members. Apart from providing the basic information the section is responsible:

1) To provide consultations for members and committees of parliament with regard to their information needs.

2) To prepare comprehensive analytical reports dealing with policy matters of the government upon the request of the individual members and the committees.

3) To provide current and accurate information as required by members and committees.

4) To maintain liaison with the national parliamentary research and library services and expand cooperation with similar organizations at the national and international level.

5) To share and exchange experiences and knowledge through participation in meetings and conferences organized at national, regional and international level in the field of parliamentary research and library services.

6) To identify and collect appropriate materials and produce briefing notes and fact sheets relevant to the parliament's debates.

7) To prepare background papers for the general use of all members as preparation for upcoming debates.

8) To produce specific research papers as requested by committees and individual members.

9) To prepare legislative histories and analytical summaries of the bills introduced in the parliament.

10) To select relevant articles, reports and documents for inclusion in the automated information system.

11) To provide specialized reference and reader assistance to the members.

12) To provide tailored briefing for members, Committees and visiting parliamentarians in their specific subject area.

13) To develop, maintain and preserve the library collections and specialized files including acquisition and accessioning of all library materials.

14) To maintain the library's automated acquisition, cataloguing/indexing and circulation system.

15) To produce periodical bibliographies, print catalogues and make lists of new library accessions.

16) To provide assistance to users in reading rooms and reference services to the chambers and committees during sessions.

17) To provide interlibrary services to other Nepalese libraries and to other parliamentary libraries.

18) To produce narrative and statistical reports on the library's activities.

19) To identify, procure, organize and index the collection of public policy studies, special reports, statistical compilations, publications of His Majesty's Government and of major regional and international organizations and other relevant documents on significant national issues.

20) To produce and reproduce the pertinent materials in the document collection on "hot" topics of legislative concern and assemble them into packets for ready distribution to members and committees on request.

21) To prepare and circulate the list of newly accessioned documents and information packets and arrange the timely delivery of packets and/or photocopies of desired documents as requested by members.

22) To provide ready reference services to members, answer telephone queries for statistical, biographical and other primary data.

23) To follow the rules and regulations of operation of the library and research section.

24) To produce and compile the press clippings from editorial comments, articles and important news items from selected newspapers both in English and Nepali as an aid to reference and research work.

Library Collections and Other Resources

1) Books: In general there are about 10,000 books in Nepali, English, Hindi and other languages in the library. These books mainly cover a wide array of subjects like Political Science, History, Geography, Constitutions, Laws. Besides these, the collection also contains books on other general subjects. Books have been shelved subject-wise by following the Dewey Decimal System.

New books acquired by the library are regularly on display for a period of one week in the library. During this period the new books are not issued.

In addition there is a collection of reference books in a separate room in the library. The reference collection includes volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Who is Who, Directories, Almanacs, Dictionaries, Constitutions of different countries, Law books, Statistical Fact Year books, and others.

Reference books and other reference materials, such as maps and atlases, cannot be taken out of the library. Similarly, current periodicals and journals may be consulted only in the library.

2) Documents: A collection of documents containing records of questions raised in the various sessions and likewise various proposals moved during various sessions of the parliament has been kept in a separate document repository room. Other documents, such as the records of the proceedings of sessions, daily business notices, copies of bills and other official documents published by the Parliament Secretariat, comprise the document collections.

Various other documents published by ministries, departments and other institutions have been included in the collection. There is a voluminous collection of documents containing collections of acts, rules and regulations published by the Law Ministry. Moreover, this document section contains official documents of parliaments of various countries. Documents published by INGOs and NGOs are also in the holdings.

3) Periodicals/Papers/Magazines: As for periodicals and journals there are about seventy titles inclusive of both national and international publications.

The library has subscriptions to more than sixty-five monthly, fortnightly, weekly, and daily papers and magazines. These periodical holdings includes both national and international publications published in English, Nepali and Hindi vernaculars.

Reading Room Facility

For the members who need to study in privacy a separate reading room with reading desks with panel partitions is available in the library.

Services and Products

1) General Reference Service

Under general reference service the library provides access to the following types of information:

1. Quotations
   
2. Encyclopaedias
   
3. Comparative Statistics
   
4. Geographical Information
   
5. Current Affairs Information
   
6. Preparation of Reference Notes, Background Papers

2) Book Issuing/Loan Service

The library allows the users to borrow books available in the library. When the users of the library require books or any other documents which are not available in the library they are made available by borrowing them from other libraries. To make the service of the library as efficient as possible books are purchased regularly as and when required.

The book lending policy adopted by the library for the users is as follows:

1. Members of Parliament: Members can borrow three books at a time for a period of fifteen days.
2. Secretariat Personnel: The personnal of the Secretariat can borrow two books at a time for a period of up to fifteen days.

During the session of the houses, the borrowing period is only one week.

3) Photocopy Service

The Library, having its own photocopying machine, provides photocopy services to the members of parliament only. Photocopy services of books and documents as and when required by the users are provided.

Library Publications

Bibliography

The library publishes at regular intervals bibliographies of its collections. The bibliographical publications are primarily as follows:

• New Books in the Library (in English): The bibliography is published in three categories: by author's name, by the title of the book, and by subject. For the books in Nepali and Hindi it is published only by the author's name.
  
• Library Report: A report on various activities of the library is published regularly by the library.
  
• Paper Clippings: The library regularly develops a file of paper cuttings and clippings on various topics from the various papers and other publications received by the library.
  
• Directory of Members: A directory of the members has been published by the library.

Developments in Automation

The Parliament Library has been computerized since 1991. With the aid of a computer on-line-service management system the library has been providing quick and high quality services to the users. The CDS/SIS database documentation system developed by UNESCO has been implemented in the library automation system. This computer program in the library provides primarily two major types of database services, namely:

1. Lib Cat (Library Cataloguing), which includes the book collection and bibliographic data, and
2. Perace (Periodical Accession), which includes records of journals and newspapers data.

Apart from the application of the computer in the computerized documentation service it has been applied in other general tasks of the library such as screen printing for writing notices/information, sorting of units of bibliography, categorizing of the books, catalogue card development of books, developing and printing of registers for the recording of books, magazines, periodicals and other publications.

Important Developments in the Library

The library looks forward to an information sharing system among the libraries/information centres within Nepal, once a network is established in the country. Further, it is planning to share legislative information among the SAARC countries with access to hooking up to information sharing systems developed/used within the SAARC countries.

The library looks forward to strengthening its Research Activities by making a separate unit for the purpose. Professional staff are planned to be recruited in the unit making them responsible for the purpose of research only.