CIRCULAR NEWSLETTER
Vol 17 - No. 1
November 1997

1 - Introductory remarks

2 - 13th Annual International Conference of Parliamentary Librarians

2.1 - Opening
2.2 - The Chairman of the Section
2.3 - The Administration of the Swedish Parliament
2.4 - The Division for Library and Research Services.
2.5 - The Research Service
2.6 - Information Policy and Activities and Presentation of the Home Page
2.7 - Presentation of the Finnish Library and Research Service
2.8 - Presentation of the ECPRD Home Page
2.9 - The Icelandic Library and Information Service
2.10- The Norwegian Library and Research Services
2.11- 75th Anniversary of the Cooperation of the Nordic Parliamentary Libraries
2.12- The ELVIL project
2.13- International IDEA (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance)


3 - The 63rd IFLA Conference, Copenhagen : August 30 - 5 September 1997


3.1 - Standing Committee Meetings

3.1.1 - Minutes of Standing Committee I, 30 August
3.1.2 - Opening of the Meeting
3.1.3 - Roll Call
3.1.4 - Approval of the Agenda
3.1.5 - Minutes of the Standing Committee meetings in Beijing on August 24 and August 30 1996
3.1.6 - Officers' Reports
3.1.7 - Co-ordinating Board and other IFLA matters
3.1.8 - Reports on Section Projects
3.1.9 - Section Activities at the Copenhagen conference
3.1.10- Elections
3.1.11- Minutes of Standing Committee II, 5 September
3.1.12- Discussion of publication of email addresses/ fax numbers and of Listservs
3.1.13- Election of Secretary of the Section
3.1.14- Medium Term Plan
3.1.15- Proposed projects of the Section
3.1.16- World Directories
3.1.17- Implications of the new name of the Section
3.1.18- Programme for the 1998 Conference in Amsterdam and 1999 Conference in Bangkok
3.1.19- Retirement of Bill Robinson as Chairman of the Section


3.2 - Open Meeting : 3 September

3.2.1 - The Parliament's need for free access to information: possible barriers and practical solutions
3.2.2 - New Developments in Library Services and Technology: Modernization of Information Services of the Parliamentary Library of the Czech Republic
3.2.3 - New developments in Parliamentary research services and technology


3.3 - Informal Meeting

3.3.1 - Minutes of the Informal Meeting, 1 September 1997
3.3.2 - Reports from regional associations
3.3.3 - Library Committees
3.3.4 - User Surveys


3.4 - Workshop in the Folketing, the Danish Parliament, 4th September 1997

3.4.1 - Welcome
3.4.2 - The Danish Parliament Library, Archives and Information Service
3.4.3 - A Member's use of the Library
3.4.4 - The Library's service to MPs
3.4.5 - Future plans for the Library of the Folketing
3.4.6 - The website of the Folketing
3.4.7 - Home Page of the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments
3.4.8 - Legislative Web Sites
3.4.9 - Digitising the Video Tape Archive of the Queensland Parliamentary Library
3.4.10- A Parliamentarian's use of the Internet


3.5 - Special Meeting on Research, Sunday 31 August


4 - PUBLICATIONS

5 - IFLA 1998 - THE 64TH IFLA CONFERENCE IN AMSTERDAM AND THE PRE- IFLA CONFERENCE IN BRUSSELS

6 - IFLA 1999 BANGKOK - request for views

7 - ANNOUNCEMENTS

8 - STANDING COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND CORRESPONDING MEMBERS

9 - E-MAIL and FAX ADDRESSES

10- APPENDIX : Registration Form for Workshop the Hague

1 - Introductory remarks

It was a pleasure to see so many colleagues in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Both conferences were very well attended and the standards of both were high. In this Newsletter you will find minutes of the meetings held in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Scandinavia brought us many interesting experiences, and we hope that this also will be the case for Amsterdam in 1998.

In the Newsletter you will find information on the Pre-Conference in Brussels as well as the main IFLA Conference. You will also find advice on arrangements for hotels in Amsterdam. We managed to arrange for a Section reservation in two hotels. A registration form for the Workshop in the Netherlands Parliament is attached as an Appendix to this Newsletter. Also enclosed is a copy of the "final announcement" for Amsterdam, containing the Registration and Hotel Booking Forms.

There is information on new publications. The German Bundestag has put the information from both the World Directory of National Parliamentary Libraries and the World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries of Federated States and Autonomous Regions onto the Internet website of the German Bundestag. This is really a magnificent piece of work done by Marga Coing.

Items for inclusion in the Newsletter are always welcome, as are any suggestions for improving it. Please let me know if any email addresses or fax numbers are wrong or if new ones come into operation. I will pass new email addresses to the Information Coordinator, Nick Bannenberg, but you may wish to inform him as well.

The deadline for items for the Spring 1998 issue is early April 1998.

I would like you to know that although my name appears as the editor of this Newsletter, all of the minutes of the 1997 meetings in have been written by Jennifer Tanfield, and Nick Bannenberg and Bill Robinson have provided assistance in checking and editing a number of items.

Jennifer, Nick and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we hope to see as many of our colleagues as possible in Brussels and Amsterdam in 1998.

Jan Keukens
Editor
5 December 1997

2 - 13th Annual International Conference of Parliamentary Librarians,

Those present:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK); Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), June Verrier (Australia), Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia), Marli Schreiber (Brazil), Suelena Bandeira (Brazil), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Francis Kirkwood (Canada), Richard Paré (Canada), Kristian Hvidt (Denmark), Elise Holt (Denmark), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Mrs Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Daniela Sraga (Croatia), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Ivi Eenmaa (Estonia), Mari Kannusaar (Estonia), Ene Loddes (Estonia), John Wittenberg (European Parliament), Tuula Laaksovirta (Finland), Eeva-Maija Tammekan (Finland), Kaarina Puttonen (Finland), Marga Coing (Germany), Gigi Tevzadze (Georgia), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary), Sandra Fine (Israel), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Yossi Kimhi (Israel), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), John Joseph (India), N K Singh (India), Haukur Arnthorsson (Iceland), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Murat Arenov (Kazakhstan), Young Hee Park (Korea), Hyum-Koo Lee (Korea), Anita Dudina (Latvia), Sandra Klisane (Latvia), Ieva Cielava (Latvia), Danute-Aleksandra Vabalaite (Lithunaia), Nijole Visockaite (Lithunia), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Olaf Torp (Norway), Brit Floistad (Norway), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Iqbal Ahmed (Sindh, Pakistan), Nawab Mirza (Sindh, Pakistan), Asraruddin Alvi (Sindh, Pakistan), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Anna Zatkalikova (Slovakia), Violeta Botaco (Slovenia), Natasa Glavnik (Slovenia), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Rosa Maria Grau Guadix (Spain), Rosario Herrero-Gutierrez (Spain), Juan Carlos da Silva (Basque, Spain), Bengt Alexanderson (Sweden), Sue Dodd (Sweden), Liisa Kvist (Sweden), Anders Norberg (Sweden), Terttu Persson (Sweden), Ernst Frishknecht (Switzerland), Shiou-jyuan Jewel Chen (Taiwan), Suchata Youyod (Thailand), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), Ercan Durdular (Turkey), Nancy Pettis (USA),Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Nelson Masawi (Zimbabwe).

The Conference was opened by Ms Birgit Friggebo, Member of the Riksdag and Chairman of the Standing Committee on the Constitution.

Mrs Friggebo spoke about the 1997 Library Act, which allows all Swedish people to borrow and use books free of charge and provides for one public library in every community, and about freedom of information in Sweden. She mentioned the cooperation between all these libraries, which is helped by the national database LIBRIS and explained the historical development of free access to documents, which dated back to the "Age of Freedom" (1718 - 1772). In 1742 it had been decided that all the documents relating to the recent war with Russia should be printed, in 1755 the newspapers started to report the debates of the four estates of the Parliament, then in 1766 a Freedom of the Press Act was adopted, one of the oldest such acts in the world. The minutes of the meetings of the Nobles, the Burghers and the Peasants in Parliament were printed from 1786 onwards.

Mrs Friggebo next gave some background information on the Committee on the Constitution which was established in 1809 when a new constitution was adopted. The Committee's role is to scrutinise the actions of the Government. The Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman, an institution which has been copied all over the world, also dates from this time.

In declaring the Conference open she hoped that "openness and cooperation" would be its keynote, reflecting the openness of the Library of Parliament which provides services both to Members of the Parliament and to the public.

[Copies of the full text of Mrs Friggebo's speech are available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

The chairman, Bill Robinson, reflected on why some 90 people from some 50 countries had come to Stockholm. Participants had come to gain something, to improve the work of their parliaments and to help them to be more effective. He suggested that the key to democracy was an effective legislature and that the key to an effective legislature was knowledge and information. There was a danger that an Executive with a monopoly of information would assume that all its actions were right. The Legislature needed to question the "top-down" policy proposals of the Executive and thereby to ensure that the people would accept those policies or modify them through the legislature to make them more acceptable. Commenting on the busy life of those working in parliamentary information services, he reminded those present of the problems that some colleagues had faced over and above the normal strains and stresses: Irina Andreeva in rescuing her library's books and equipment following the storming of the White House in Moscow and now Zana Bufi and Vjollca Hysenbegas of Albania who had continued to work in their library while their capital city was under fire.

He thanked Mrs Friggebo for taking time to attend the opening of the conference and for her informative speech and presented her with a gift on behalf of the Section.

Mr Anders Forsberg, the Director General, said that he considered it a privilege to work in the Parliament and went on to explain its organisation.

The present Parliament of 349 members was divided into seven parliamentary groups, with the Social Democrats holding most seats (161) but not an overall majority. Under the Speaker the Secretariat of the Chamber was administered by the Secretary General and answerable to the Speaker's Conference. The Standing Committees, International Secretariat and Advisory Committee on EU Affairs were administered by the Committee Secretaries and answerable to the Chairmen of Committees. Thirdly there was the Administration Office under the direction of the Director General and answerable to the Board of Administration. In total 505 people worked for the Parliament.

The Administrative Office was responsible for services to Members (their pay, staff etc), for Information and Documentation, for "Knowledge" (the Library, Research Service and EU

Information), for the premises (including flats and a hotel for Members) and for information technology. There were 1,600 computer workstations, with Members using computers both in the Parliament and at home. Recently one person, answerable to the Director General, had been appointed as coordinator of information technology throughout the Parliament which had a large number of different applications in use.

His objectives as Director General were to decentralise decision taking, to introduce management by goal setting, and to evaluate the achievement of those goals. Regular questionnaires to Members were used in evaluation. He wished to reduce departmentalisation and to encourage joint projects and flexibility - which would be particularly important as there would be no increase in the number of staff.

The overall goals for the Division for Library and Research Services were:

• To ensure that Members and staff of the Swedish Parliament receive the factual and background information necessary for them to fulfil their parliamentary duties

• To contribute to raising the general level of awareness of political and social development with high priority for issues concerning parliamentary activities and the European Union

• To develop the Division's activities by the use of information technology. The Division has special responsibility for encouraging use and knowledge of external databases.

The questions to Members on library services included in the evaluation questionnaire were:

• Do you get enough information from the library to make the best use of it?

• How often did you use the library in the last session?

• Improvements?

Ms Margarita Brundin, Head of the Division, explained that during 1997 the Library and Research Services had been brought together and that the Division also included the EU Information Centre.

The EU Information Centre was set up following a recommendation in 1996 that Parliament should be responsible for keeping the public informed about the European Union, both the institutions and regulations of the Union and the actions of the Swedish Parliament on EU matters. The Centre provides a telephone service (with free telephone lines) and receives requests by mail and fax. Its 8 staff deal with 1,200 enquiries per month.

The Library was given legislative status in 1851, with international exchange with other Nordic countries being an important element from the early twentieth century. From 1931 the Library has been a deposit library for all printed government publications and for publications from a number of international organisations. The Library is open to the public but stock acquisition is based on the needs of the parliament. Members of the Riksdag have access to the Library at all times of the day and night although it is staffed only for normal office hours. The Library Department, with a staff of 35, now consists of the Acquisition and Cataloguing Section, the Information and Circulation Section and the Archives of Parliament. 40,000 inquiries and issues are handled per year - 40% to Parliament and 60% to the public. The two main catalogue databases are LIBRIS - the national catalogue of Sweden - and RIXLEX - the catalogue of the Library of the Parliament. The collection includes some 700,000 volumes but it is hoped that growth will be contained in future as a result of electronic publication. Amongst the holdings are government publications, publications of the EU and other international organisations, books, periodicals and CD-ROM as well as on-line databases. The archive includes parliamentary documents, photographs, video and tape recordings, architectural drawings, and biographies of Members of Parliament.

A new Windows based library system is at an advanced planning stage.

In answer to questions Margareta Brundin discussed the advantages of combining library and research services. It was important to researchers to have access to a good library and to be able to influence acquisition decisions and, given constraints on staff increases, the use of librarians to deal with reference enquiries was valuable. She later confirmed that the Member of Parliament did not need to know whether to approach the research service or the library service (the enquiry would be handed to the appropriate person) and that the public did not have access to the research service. For the new library system they were seeking an off-the-shelf system which had been used in other libraries. On training she explained that they gave training to librarians from all over Sweden as well as one day courses on the EU. Their own staff had individual training plans. To encourage the Members to visit the Library special breakfast meetings were held at which celebrities were invited to speak

Ms Monica Sundgren, the Head of the Research Section noted that the service was set up in 1955, and functioned as a separate unit from 1966 to 1996. She explained that government bills are prepared by Government Commissions - often with MPs as members - followed by publicly available comments from all interested parties, and that standing committees have their own permanent staff. This means that there is no great need for elaborate research reports on bills, but Members and party groups need help with formulating alternative policies, in their control of government activities and to help to answer electors.

The general guidelines of the research service allow Members to request any information which they may need in connection with their political activities, require the answers to be supplied at the time which the Member wishes, and that the information should be correct, unbiased and presented in a concise and easily read manner. The service does not draft private member's bills or speeches and does not undertake casework or matters of a strictly private nature. It does do work for the Speaker and the secretariat, standing committees and the Rikstag Administration. Two researchers work as Deputy Clerks of the chamber. A new Budget Office with qualified specialists and analysts is being set up.

3,000 requests per year are dealt with, 75% from MPs, 20% from party groups and 5% from others. Almost 90% of Members seek assistance from the Research Service in a year. The 30 staff include 23 research officers who have qualifications in law, economics and social policy. They work in three sections dealing with legal and general questions, economics and statistics, and budget analysis. Two or three lawyers are "borrowed" on a regular basis from the higher courts and students studying for higher degrees are attached to the service on a parliamentary scholarship. Although researchers have special fields of interest they must be prepared to answer the full range of questions. They had very little need now for secretarial assistance but did have 5 assistants who provide research assistance. In the Swedish Parliament there were now 10 staff who work 1-2 days a week at home as part of a special project evaluating homeworking. Four of these staff are in the research service. The researchers meet each day to discuss requests. They have their own collection of documents and a small library, as well as national and international databases. Enquiries and answers are registered in a database.

At present the main areas of growth are international matters and economic analysis but she saw future growth in the complexity of enquiries, more requests from other parliaments, and as a result of increases in Members' staff and the staff of the party groups.

[A full text of Monica Sundgren's presentation is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

In answer to questions Monica Sundgren explained that work was not commissioned from outside bodies such as universities because without on-the-job training they did not present information in a way which was useful to parliamentarians. The fairly limited coverage of the researchers (no scientists or foreign affairs specialists) had not so far given rise to any problems. In response to a question on impartiality and whether MPs could ask for a briefing on one side of an argument only, she said that the researcher's job was to provide the facts leaving the political gloss to be provided by the Member of Parliament.

Ms Marianne Carlbom, Head of Information Division, explained the work of her division which includes 30 staff. In 1996 the Parliament had adopted an information policy with an overall goal of increasing public interest in the democratic process. The Information Division was required to provide information which was not party political, was up-to-date and adapted to the levels of ability of the users. They dealt with 26,000 enquiries per year, explained the work of the Riksdag and provided tours of the parliamentary building for 100,000 visitors as wellas offering special services to school children and teachers. The Information Centre was visited by 800 people each week and the parliament's web site was the largest in Sweden. The Home Page is updated daily, has five full time editors and includes future agendas, information about committees, biographies of MPs with photographs and the facility to send an email by clicking on the Member's address.

To avoid disadvantaging citizens not having access to a computer, libraries all over the country are expected to provide open access to all government information.

Questions to Ms Carlbom included whether the public accepted the information provided by the Parliament as being free of news manipulation; details of the Home Page editors - 2 are librarians and 3 come from other departments of the Parliament - and use of consultants (used for the project stage only); and how the use of librarians as the link between Parliament and the public was established - as part of the information policy of the Parliament, drawing on the Swedish tradition of using libraries to inform the public.

Ms Tuula Laaksovirta, the Director of the Library of the Finnish Parliament started by explaining that the Finnish Library and Archives were set up before Finland became a sovereign state; this happened in 1872 when Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy belonging to Russia but with its own parliament. The Library was therefore celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, the same year in which the state was celebrating its 80th anniversary and 90 years since universal suffrage was granted. At the time of universal suffrage women received full political rights and were eligible to stand for election. As early as 1907, nineteen women were elected to the Finnish Parliament.

The Finnish Parliamentary Library was established because of a combination of factors. Having previously been part of Sweden, the Grand Duchy of Finland had Swedish speaking intellectuals, its own legislative organs and a culture which esteemed knowledge (dating from the Finnish epic the Kalevala). It was also at the time experiencing a vigorous national awakening and some valuable collections were presented to Finland by Sweden; the first collection in the 1870s and a further collection in the 1880s. The documents dated back to the 16th century and included parliamentary records. Since 1908 one of the tasks of the Library of Parliament has been the distribution of parliamentary documents to all libraries, which have free access to these documents.

Following the Russian Revolution, the Finnish Parliament seized supreme authority in 1917 and a Form of Government Act was adopted in 1919, which with some amendment has remained the basis of Parliament's authority. The Library's name was changed to the Library of Parliament in 1907 and under its statutes of 1913 became a public special library of law and political sciences. Today it is the largest special library for literature and political sciences and is maintained and used by the Finnish Parliament but open to all. From 1919 the Library was granted the right to receive free copies of all literature in these fields published in Finland.

The unicameral Parliament has 200 members, roughly one third women. There are some 400 parliamentary officials and about 70 people working for the party groups.

There have been 7 to 10 parties in most post-war parliaments. There are 13 Committees. In 1995 Finland joined the European Union.

From 1956 to 1975 information services for Members of Parliament were provided by the Library. In 1975 a separate unit, the Information and Research Service of the Central Office, serving only the Parliament was set up. Although combining this unit with the Library's information services has been proposed, it has not yet happened.

The Parliamentary Library is under the direction of a Library Committee of five Members of Parliament and three experts representing the Library's special fields of expertise. It has 4 service groups - Administrative Service; Acquisition and Collection Service; Reference, Archives and Lending Service; Information and Research Service; The Library has 3 specialist Chief Librarians, for Parliament Service, for Law and for Political Science. There is a permanent staff of 58 and a budget of about 3 million dollars. The Information and Research unit under the Central Office has only 6 - 8 staff. Members of Parliament are about to be entitled to one personal assistant each.

[A pamphlet containing the English text of this presentation with additional information and charts is available from Jennifer Tanfield]

Ms Kaarina Puttonen, Chief Librarian for Parliament Service, Finnish Library of Parliament, presented the Nordic Research Libraries' Internet site.

She explained that this site is hosting a project to provide an up-to-date version of the Nordic parliamentary papers list which last appeared as a paper copy in 1991. The list shows which countries hold Nordic parliamentary papers and is a useful tool for inter-library lending. The electronic version is at an early stage.

John Wittenberg, Co-Secretary of the European Centre for Research and Documentation (ECPRD) explained the membership and functions of the organisation. Membership consists of the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Assembly of the Western European Union and all parliaments of member states of the Council of Europe and special guests. For parliaments with two chambers, each chamber is a member. There are currently 40 member countries and 4 special guest countries, with the USA (represented by Bill Robinson) participating as an observer. Its functions are to provide a contacts network, to provide an information exchange, and to support working groups (on information technology and macro-economic research), seminars and a publications programme. ECPRD is non-political. Comparative studies of legislation or aspects of parliamentary organisation are of particular value. 1997 is the 20th anniversary of ECPRD and the new ECPRD web site [http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/cerdp/en/public/default.htm] was to be launched at the annual correspondents' meeting in October. [This relaunch has been delayed]

John Wittenberg gave a preview of the features of new web site, which is password protected, although he explained that it had not been completed at this stage. In answer to questions he explained that ECPRD was financed by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe who provided the staff of the Centre; the European Parliament providing 1.5 to 2 persons and the Council of Europe half a person. The budget is used for the secretarial support and publications. Each parliament pays the travel and subsistence of those attending meetings but the two international assemblies subsidise the participation from Central and Eastern Europe parliaments. Host countries finance seminars.

Mr Haukur Arnthorsson, said that the population of Iceland was a quarter of a million and there were 63 Members of Parliament.

He explained the new organisation structure of the Administration. A new department of Information Technology had been created alongside the Sittings Department, the Committee Department and the Services Department. The new department is responsible for public relations and relations with the media, for computers and for information services. The Library is part of this department and no longer a separate unit. One of the objectives of the new organisation was to improve the citizens' faith in the Althingi and to improve the services to Members of Parliament and Committees. Interactive communications between citizens and the Althingi are planned. The public and media relations section is responsible for the web site, for services to the public, including the media and schools, for preparing material and for receiving visitors to the parliament. The information services section is responsible for the library and deals with information for Members, Committees, and the public. Many of the questions are on international or EU matters. Advice on web site links and contributions to the development of information systems are part of the work of the section. One of the immediate tasks was to recruit a new Head of Information Services.

During questions Mr Arnthorsson explained that the Sittings Department was responsible for the Archive. He noted that the parliament was not badly thought of by the public and that older citizens in particular watched or listened to the broadcasts from the Althingi. Email and the web are popular with Members who only turn to the Library for written material. No research service has been provided; committee staff and Members' staff have done their own research. Questions were asked about reliance on secondary sources and archiving of material obtained from external databases. The subject of the need for special training for parliamentary librarians was discussed.

Brit Floistad, the Parliamentary Librarian, said that she would explain at the end of her presentation why the reference to "Research" for the Norwegian Parliament was premature. She sketched the history of the Norwegian constitution and parliament which date back to 1814 in the period when the rule of Norway was being handed over from Denmark to Sweden. The union with Sweden lasted until 1905. The Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, is a unique combination of a one chamber and two chamber system, with a general elections for the representative assembly but when passing legislation the Storting divides into two chambers, the Odelsting (three quarters of the Members) and the Lagting (the remaining quarter). At the time of the meeting the Parliament consisted of 165 Members representing 8 political parties and a minority labour government (an election was held on 15 September as a result of which the labour party still has the largest number of seats but may not continue in government). The main arena for discussion are the party groups and the standing committees. Each MP is a member of one of the twelve standing committees. If an MP becomes a minister, a substitute takes the seat in the Parliament.

The Information and Documentation Department is one of five departments of the Storting. The Library is one of 5 sections in this department and Archives another. The acquisition of books started in 1818 but the Library was not formally established until 1871, under the Clerk. A full-time Librarian and assistant were appointed in 1887. Until 1978 the Library was housed in the main building but since then has been located in an adjacent building connected to the main building by a tunnel. The distance between the Library and the areas used by Members remains a source of regret. The Library is primarily for the use of Members and staff of the Parliament, but former Members and government officials also have access. Others, such as researchers and students may use the library on request. There is a staff of 12 - 8 librarians and 4 clerical staff, all of whom take it in turn to work at the circulation desk and on tasks such as press clipping.

The holdings include an "Old Collection" of books and pamphlets acquired before 1940, all parliamentary papers of all the Nordic countries and US Congressional records, and a modern collection of books, reports, pamphlets, etc. Since 1970 the Library has received a complimentary copy of all Norwegian novels which Members are encouraged to read during their vacations. The Library is not a deposit library for any international organisations but subscribes to all official EU documents and receives material from other international bodies. Current subscriptions include 620 journals and 185 newspapers, 45 of them foreign papers. There is a special collection of political brochures and party manifestos dating back to the end of the 18th century and a collection of political cartoons published since 1950.

The Library has access to the Internet and its own Home Page, with access to the Library's catalogue and the possibility of ordering material on-line. It is responsible for selecting on-line databases and provides training in their use.

A special service of the Library is mediatek, which dates back to the 1970s, and consists of recordings from 4 television channels and 4 radio stations which are kept for 2 months to allow Members to see or hear programmes. Television programmes can now be transmitted direct to the Member's office. A press clippings service, producing a daily file of some 550 clippings sent to all Members, has been in operation for two years. Formerly the party groups did their own clipping.

European Union matters have been of importance since 1990 despite the "No" referendum result in 1994. Norway has a special trading relationship with the EU and for the last 4 years the Library has been sending out a list of documents, speeches, articles etc which users may return with a request for items of interest.

Because of the Library's distance from the plenary hall it took the initiative to make recent foreign newspapers available in a room close to the plenary. Future library plans envisage increasing the types of material available in this room. There are also plans to take over the intake of the periodicals and other material received by the standing committees, providing coordination and closer contact with the committees. The library will increase its Home Page links to useful sources as a way to increase awareness of its services.

Although there is no research service in the Norwegian Parliament the question of providing one has been raised from time to time and in 1996 a Commission was set up to look at the possibility. The Commission found that there was a need for professional assistance beyond the reference service provided by the Library. They proposed a separate "Documentation Service", with 5 - 7 specialists in the fields of law, political science and economics. It was not proposed that the service should be part of the Library. There was some fear that "experts" would "take over", but the Commission stressed that the new unit would be a non-political service, different from the assistance given by the party secretariats. The final result of these deliberations will be decided by the Assembly of the Storting, probably in the autumn of 1997.

[copies of the full text of Brit Floistad's presentation are available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Questions included details about the political composition of the two chambers, the archiving of tapes, user surveys (which reveal that the use of the services was affected by the distance from the main building but, as in other parliaments, a high level of general satisfaction and lack of detailed knowledge of the services available), whether committees or political groups had research staff (the party groups do), whether there is a library committee (no, abolished in 1991-2), whether demand was growing (yes - particularly mediatek and press clippings which are faxed to Members when they are not in Oslo), whether the number of Members' staff was growing (yes) and whether committees could commission research from outside (yes).

To celebrate this anniversary four former librarians, Bengt Alexanderson of Sweden, Kristian Hvidt of Denmark, Eeva-Maija Tammekann of Finland and Olaf Torp of Norway were questioned by the current directors of the Nordic libraries about "the early days".

Ms Ingrid Cantwell explained the ELVIL project which is being carried out by a consortium consisting of Stockholm University, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and De Montfort University (England) and financed by the European Parliament. The project started in October 1996, with the protype planned for August 1997 and the demonstration phase for October 1998. She showed the site as it currently stood - http://www.sub.su.se/elvil.htm .

ELVIL stands for the European Virtual Library and its aim is to increase significantly the availability of European parliamentary to the citizen. A User Survey had been carried out which showed that the public would like the facility to email their members of parliament.

The virtual library includes a search engine that will support three parliamentary databases, the Swedish RIXLEX, the English POLIS and the European EPOQUE and an index on law and politics. It uses the multilingual thesaurus EUROVOC. She was very excited about the future of the project, both Poland and the Czech Republic were joining it, and she foresaw developments such as electronic conferencing and virtual shadow parliaments.

The final session of the Pre-Conference was a visit to the nearby offices of IDEA on the island of Stromsborg, the "island of democracy". Mr Bengt Save-Soderbergh, Secretary General and Mr Lars Olfo Edstrom explained the work of the Institute which was was founded in 1995 and has the backing of 17 countries as well as IPU, the International Commission of Jurists, the UN Development Programme and other international bodies. It has a staff of 35.

One of IDEA's objectives is to strengthen and promote norms, rules and guidelines in the field of democracy and elections and it has a number of projects related to electoral observation and practices to promote the participation of women in political activities. Although not a research institute, it can commission research, publishes existing research findings in user-friendly form and points to areas where research would be useful. As Mr Lee Woodyear explained, the Institute has a large publications programme in a number of languages, and those present were asked to indicate whether they wished to receive complimentary copies of these documents. Ms Sue Dodd, the Librarian, hosted a visit to the Library of the Institute where a number of publications were available to take away.

The Institute's Home Page is www.int-idea.se, email address info@idea.se.

3 - The 63rd IFLA Conference, Copenhagen : August 30 - 5 September 1997

3.1 - Standing Committee Meetings

3.1.1 - Minutes of Standing Committee I, 30 August:

The meeting was attended by the following members of the Standing Committee:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK) Irina Andreeva (Russia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Brit Floistad (Norway), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Marga Coing (Germany), John Joseph (India), Rosa Maria Grau (Spain), Richard Paré (Canada), Young Hee Park (Korea), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland).

Attending as observers were the following:

Erca Durdular (Turkey), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), N K Singh (India), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Cananda), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Shiou-jyan Jewel Chen (Taiwan), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Ruth MacEachern (New Zealand), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Frank Kirkwood (Cananda), Juan Carlos da Silva (Spain), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Ravinder Kumar Chadha (India).

(37 people, 26 countries)

The Chairman, Bill Robinson, welcomed those attending the meeting, and explained that it was the practice of the Section to encourage all its members to attend Standing Committee meetings although only the members of the Standing Committee could vote. He thanked all the members of the Section for their friendship and support during his four years as Chairman, and paid particular tribute to his two secretaries, Brit Floistad and Jennifer Tanfield, to Nick Bannenberg for the creation of the Homepage and to Margareta Brundin and Elise Holt for their work for the 1997 Pre-Conference and the Section's meetings in Copenhagen. He pointed out that, as the Section grew, it was increasingly necessary to share the administrative tasks. He also expressed his thanks to those who had helped the Section's publication programme, mentioning Ernst Kohl and Rob Brian and those who provided invaluable help with translation of papers and publications, including Dulce Maria Liahut of Mexico, Julietta Volio of Costa Rica, Ximena Feliu and Marialyse Delano, Irina Andreeva, Richard Paré and Gaston Bernier.

3.1.3 - Roll Call

The roll call of the Standing Committee was read and the members of the Standing Committee introduced themselves to those present.

3.1.4 - Approval of the Agenda

The draft agenda was approved.

3.1.5 - Minutes of the Standing Committee meetings in Beijing on August 24 and August 30 1996

The Minutes of the meetings were approved.

Membership: Jennifer Tanfield reported that the membership of the Section in July was 104 compared with 102 in July 1996. The 104 members comprised 73 parliamentary libraries, 3 associations of parliamentary libraries (APLA, APLIC, and NCSL - US National Conference of State Legislatures), 3 national libraries (that are not also parliamentary libraries), 13 library associations, 2 international organisations (IPU and UN), 7 individuals, 2 university libraries and one other organisation

Finances: Jennifer Tanfield explained that sections received some money for administrative expenses such as stationery and postage. Bill Robinson later explained that the amount was not sufficient to cover all the costs, so that the parliaments employing Section Officers had to cover some of these costs. The Section had asked for the maximum, 1200 Dutch guilder, for 1998 and had been granted this. The other funds were related to the section's four publication projects, which Bill Robinson would explain under item 7 of the agenda. Details of the expenditure in 1997 would be included in the section Newsletter. [These details have been held over to the May Newsletter]

Bill Robinson explained that IFLA was arranged into divisions each with a co-ordinating board composed of the officers of sections in the division. The chairman of each co-ordinating board sat on the Professional Board which determined IFLA's policy on professional matters. The Section of Library and Research Services for Parliaments was part of the General Research Libraries Division, along with the National Libraries Section and the University Libraries Section.

Jennifer Tanfield said that one of the functions of the Co-ordinating Board was to pass on information from the Professional Board. She, Bill Robinson and Nick Bannenberg had attended a meeting on 29 August and the messages to be passed on included some information about the 1998 Amsterdam Conference and details about the joint forum on copyright and electronic data. The latter was scheduled for Tuesday 2 September and was a joint session of Division 1 and the Collections and Services Division. Frank Kirkwood gave some additional details of this joint session, which he had been organising. Other information from the Co-ordinating Board concerned the declaration on acid-free permanent paper (for archiving purposes) which IFLA was forwarding to UNESCO. Section members were urged to use their influence with national UNESCO committees in support of this declaration. Proposals to amend the IFLA structure, gradually phasing out Round Tables and possibly amalgamating some sections were mentioned. There had been a suggestion that the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments should be amalgamated with the Government Library Section and the Section on Government Information and Official Publications, but the officers of the Section had made it clear that this was not acceptable. Gaston Bernier reminded those present that at one time the Section was part of the Administrative Libraries Section and had fought for its independent status.

Bill Robinson reported on the four projects currently being completed by the Section:

• Parliamentary Libraries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Iberia
  This publication, based on papers presented at the pre-meeting in Costa Rica and subsequently updated and extended, had been delayed. However, all the chapters were now complete and it was expected that the Spanish version would be published in late 1997 by either the Parliament of Mexico or the Parliament of Costa Rica. An English translation was planned for publication in 1998.

• Parliamentary Libraries and Research Services of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
  The text of this publication is complete except for the overview and summary table. It is hoped that Saur will publish it.

• Translations of Guidelines for Legislative Libraries
  An updated and extended version of this publication would be available in 5 languages in 1997:
  
  - Spanish: published in the IFA professional series in Sept/Oct 1997;
  - French: just weeks from publication in the same series;
  - Russian: will be published by the Duma in 1997;
  - German: will be published by the Bundestag, which had also provided the translation;
  - Arabic: will be published by the King Fahd National Library of Saudi Arabia.
  
  It is hoped that a new English edition, with the same updating and additional information, will be published in 1998, perhaps by Saur.

• Parliamentary Libraries of Asia and the Pacific.
  This publication had been edited by Rob Brian from the papers prepared for the Bejing Conference and had now been published by Saur.

Bill Robinson said that he intended to complete all the outstanding work on the above publications so that the new Executive Officers of the Section would not have to take them over. Jennifer Tanfield paid tribute to Bill for the very impressive publication programme that he had organised during his chairmanship.

Bill Robinson read through the Section programme and gave information on timing, meeting places etc. At the end of the meeting suggestions for topics for discussion at the informal meeting were made. The topics suggested included:

• whether a parliamentary library should have its own IT staff;
• changes in collection development policies as a result of the Internet;
• services for parliamentarians' staff in the constituency/local office;
• on the job training;
• apprenticeships for libraries in developed countries;
• use of qualified librarians;
• demand for audiovisual services;
• how to get more staff and special recruiting needs;
• quality control of the Internet and Internet subscription contracts;
• Library Committees;
• EU documentation;
• feedback from parliamentarians;
• thesauri for parliamentary material.

3.1.10- Elections

The chairman explained that the Section had a Standing Committee of 20, who were elected not only for their skills and experience, but also to reflect in part the geographical distribution of the libraries which were members of the section. Elections were held every two years and volunteers for future Standing Committee members would be welcomed. The two officers of the Section, the chairman and secretary, had in the past been elected on the basis of on-the-job training: the secretary served for four years as secretary and then four years as chairman and after internal soundings one candidate for each post was presented to the Section for election. There were certain requirements for officers; their Parliament had to be prepared for some financial input, for instance for postage, and the officer had to have access to good electronic communications.

As he had reached the end of the maximum service allowed for a chairman, there was now a vacancy for the position. He nominated Jennifer Tanfield, who was seconded by Richard Paré. There being no other nominations, Jennifer Tanfield was declared elected. She thanked the meeting and explained that she could only undertake to be chairman for two years.

As a result of this election, there was now a vacancy for Secretary of the Section. A number of names had been mentioned. As some of these were not members of the Standing Committee Bill Robinson undertook to consult IFLA HQ as to whether a vacancy on the Standing Committee could be used for a new secretary. [IFLA HQ said that this was not possible]. The names put forward at the meeting were Margareta Brundin (Sweden) who is not a current Standing Committee member; Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia); Jan Keukens (Netherlands); Rob Brian (NSW, Australia) who is not a current Standing Committee member; Richard Paré (Canada); Karel Sosna (Czech Republic); June Verrier (Australia) who is not a current Standing Committee member; Woijech Kuliskiewicz (Poland); Gaston Bernier (Quebec) who is not a current standing committee member; Irina Andreva (Russia); Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia) who is not a current member of the Standing Committee; Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia) who is not a current member of the Standing Committee; Ximena Feliu (Chile) and Marialyse Delano (Chile) who is not a current member of the Standing Committee.

It was agreed that the election of the Secretary would be postponed until the second Standing Committee meeting at the end of the week.

The meeting was attended by the following members of the Standing Committee:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK) Irina Andreeva (Russia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Brit Floistad (Norway), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Marga Coing (Germany), John Joseph (India), Rosa Maria Grau (Spain), Richard Paré (Canada), Young Hee Park (Korea), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Tuula Laaksovirta (Finland).

Attending as observers were the following:

Erca Durdular (Turkey), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), N K Singh (India), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Cananda), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Shiou-jyan Jewel Chen (Taiwan), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Ruth MacEachern (New Zealand), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Frank Kirkwood (Cananda), Juan Carlos da Silva (Spain), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Ravinder Kumar Chadha (India), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Abdel Elah Waafa (Egypt), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Suchata Youyod (Thailand), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Hanna Voskresenska (Ukraine), Anne Pries (Netherlands), Nina Svedsen (Norway), Vigdis Grasto (Norway), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Ioana Borocan (Romania), June Verrier (Australia), Ravinder Kumar Chadha (India), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary).

(54 people, 33 countries)

The agenda covering the two Standing Committee meetings was continued

Nick Bannenberg explained that the Section's home page included a list of email addresses of Section members (and that these also appeared in the home page version of the Section Newsletter). It was possible that persons other than Section members might make use of this email list to send advertising or other messages. There were a number of options if people were worried about this. One was to have password protection on the home page (as is done on the ECPRD home page [http://www.ecprd.org]), another was to print only the general email address for each library, a third was to delete the address of anyone concerned about "junk mail". As only two people present expressed concern it was agreed that their addresses should be deleted and that any other member of the Section who wished to have their number deleted should inform the Section Information Coordinator. It was agreed that it would be useful to publish a list of email addresses for library enquiry points to give a contact point at times when the member of the Section was not available. [At a later point the suggestion was made that for parliamentary libraries with their own web site address this address should be published as it was sometimes easier to access the library page than to get into the page for the parliament].

Frank Kirkwood explained how a Listserv could be used to contact all Section members simultaneously, for instance to give up-to-date information about conferences. He had been testing a Listserv which he would operate on behalf of the Section, making sure that those sending messages were genuine members and that the message justified simultaneous transmission (Listservs become counterproductive if those involved are inundated by messages). The creation of this sort of Listserv requires each person to send an initial message and to test that the system works properly for them. It was agreed that a Listserv should be introduced for all Standing Committee members with an email address and that this should be extended to all members of the Section with email addresses by Spring 1998 to help with communications about the 1998 conference.

Following the election of Jennifer Tanfield (the current Secretary) as Chairman of the Section the post of Secretary had become vacant. Bill Robinson reported that IFLA officers had confirmed that only persons currently on the Standing Committee were eligible for election. Jennifer Tanfield nominated Jan Keukens (Netherlands) who was seconded by Rob Brian. There being no other nomination Jan Keukens was elected.

IFLA rules do not allow for election of the Information Coordinator, but the meeting endorsed the proposal that Nick Bannenberg should continue to act as Information Coordinator.

3.1.14- Medium Term Plan

There was a brief discussion of the Medium Term Plan for the years 1998-2001. It was decided that the draft plan published in the November 1996 Newsletter should be the final version submitted by the Section. It was possible that some amendments might be proposed by the Executive Board.

3.1.15- Proposed projects of the Section

It was suggested that the Section should investigate whether funding could be provided to make sure that every parliamentary library had access to the Internet. Mr Kosi Kedem, a Member of the Parliament of Ghana, made a plea for special help for African countries. Among the types of assistance suggested were visits to African countries by Officers of the Section, support for a pan-African meeting of librarians under the umbrella of the Union of African Parliaments, and IFLA help to allow parliamentary librarians to participate in regional meetings. Jennifer Tanfield referred to a publication of the IFLA core programme ALP, Guide to Institutions supporting Librarianship in Developing Countries (Project report on 7, 1996).

3.1.16- World Directories

The Section has two international directories, The World Directory of National Parliamentary Libraries, currently in its 6th edition, and the World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries of Federated States and Autonomous Territories, of which one edition has been published. Bill Robinson reported that it had been agreed that the next edition of the directory of national parliamentary libraries would be a leaner, electronically based one using the Internet. Marga Coing (Germany) had agreed to be responsible for this edition and would consult on the information to be included. One of the members of the Standing Committee would arrange to print a limited number of hard copy directories for the benefit of countries not linked to the Internet. Richard Paré (Canada) had agreed to coordinate a new, electronic, edition of the directory of parliamentary libraries of federated states and autonomous territories. He would use a number of regional sub-editors to collect information and arrangements would be made for a limited hard copy print run. [For developments on the World Directories see the Publications section of this newsletter.]

Opportunities which would encourage parliaments to allow researchers to attend future IFLA meetings were discussed, following the successful special meeting on research. Jennifer Tanfield undertook to apply to IFLA headquarters for a room for a repeat of the special meeting on research at the 1998 Amsterdam conference and she asked Bill Robinson if he would take responsibility for drawing up the agenda for the meeting. This special meeting, together with the Section's informal meeting, meant that the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments had a fuller programme than any other Section, as well as holding a Pre-Conference which was of interest to both librarians and researchers. Jennifer Tanfield promised to make sure that at least one Open Meeting paper presented a topic of interest to research.

3.1.18- Programme for the 1998 Conference in Amsterdam and 1999 Conference in Bangkok

Jennifer Tanfield reported that she had asked Dick Toornstra whether the European Parliament would host a pre-conference in Brussels. If this was agreed, the Belgian Parliamentary Librarian had proposed that half a day should be spent in his Parliament. She suggested that the 1998 meetings might lead to a publication on the parliamentary libraries of Western Europe, which could become a Section project for 1998-99. Members were asked for suggestions on a location for a pre-conference in 1999. Nick Bannenberg said that if there were no invitations from parliaments more conveniently located in relation to Thailand, the Parliament of Queensland would be prepared to host a pre-conference.

Discussion on the programme for the 1998 conference included the proposal that there should be more time for discussion of presentations, for instance that the Open Meeting should include only two papers and a longer time for questions and discussion. It was also proposed that papers should not be read, since the text was available before the meeting, and that instead only a summary should be presented. It was recognised that this was more difficult for non-English speakers. Amongst the suggestions for topics to be considered/papers to be presented were press clippings, methods of handing European Union documentation, and the major modernisation project underway in the Chilean Parliamentary Library.

Nick Bannenberg, as one of the longest serving members of the Standing Committee, paid tribute to all the work which Bill Robinson had done for the Section, both as Secretary and as Chairman, and also for his outstanding work for the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and in other parts of the world. He presented Bill with a silver tray engraved with the words "Presented to Bill Robinson in appreciation of all his work for the parliaments of the world. IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments September 1997"; and with a scroll, signed by members of the Section which read:

The IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments, expresses its appreciation for the outstanding contribution made to the Section over the past four years in his capacity as Chairman, by Mr William H. Robinson of the Congressional Research Service, and has determined that he be presented with its initial Award of Merit. Particular recognition is acknowledged for his encouragement of Library and Research units in the many newly developing democracies in Eastern Europe as well as countries outside Europe. On this, the occasion of his retirement from office at the September 1997 IFLA Conference in Copenhagen, all of the undersigned offer their appreciation for his professional conduct, unerring good humour and humanitarian approach throughout his term of office, and extend to him their best wishes for whatever pursuits he may plan for the future.

Those present:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK). Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia), June Verrier (Australia), Dick Toornstra (European Parliament), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Suelena Bandeira (Brazil), Marli Elisabeth Schreiber (Brazil), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Francis Kirkwood (Canada), Richard Paré (Canada), Eric Spicer (Canada), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Wafaa Abdel Elah (Egypt), Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Aare Kasemets (Estonia), Ene Loddes (Estonia), Sinikka Kangas, (Finland), Helka Mälkki (Finland), Serge Bouffange (France), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary), Ravinder K Chadha (India), John Joseph (India), N K Singh (India), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Fadaie Araghi Gholamreza (Iran), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Murat Arenov (Kazakhstan), Young Hee Park (Korea), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Shhar Banum Jaafar (Malaysia), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Anne Pries-Heike (Netherlands), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Ruth MacEachern (New Zealand), Stine Marie Berner (Norway), Brit Fløistad (Norway), Adnan Owda (Palestinian Legislative Council), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Ewa Nawrocka (Poland), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Irina Andreeva (Russia), David Guiter (Russia), Anna Zaktkaliková (Slovakia), Natasa Glavnik (Slovenia), Nada Cesnovar (Slovenia), Ernst Frischknecht (Switzerland), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Juan Carlos da Silva (Basque, Spain), Rosa Maria Grau Gaudix (Spain), Ingrid Cantwell (Sweden), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), Ercan Durdular (Turkey), Jane Ann Lindley (Turkey), Shiou-jyuan Jewel Chen (Taiwan, Republic of China), James Maowu (Uganda), Hanna P Voskresenska (Ukraine), Anatolii Brovkin (Ukraine), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Nelson Masawi (Zimbabwe).

Rob Brian gave an electronic presentation of his paper. His slides included discussion on the "Legislator's Requirements" which he listed as access to information, access to research and the attributes that this information and research should be free, relevant, accurate, timely and impartial. His "Barriers" slide included lack of adequate staff, lack of an adequate collection, and lack of adequate equipment. "Solutions" were adequate funding, attracting highly qualified and experienced librarians, attracting highly qualified research staff, training and development, collection development (subdivided into books, journals, CD-ROMs and databases), legal deposit (of printed material, microforms, audiovisual/multimedia material, computer disks, CD-ROMs and on-line databases) and copyright law, where he advocated special provision for parliamentarians such as no limits on photocopying and the right to copy from TV and radio. He then discussed the use of the Internet which requires a personal computer, a printer, a modem, a telephone line and a service provider. Publishing on the Net can cover parliamentary debates, legislation, the daily business of the parliament and the "Votes and Proceedings". The two key benefits of good access to information are first, better informed legislators who make better laws, who need to make fewer corrections, who save money and who get re-elected; and also a better informed electorate who are then more likely to elect a good Government. Finally he suggested that the role of parliamentary librarians was to work tirelessly to obtain the necessary resources, to value their staff, to set goals, to negotiate a Guarantee of Service, to produce a Corporate Plan and to deliver.

There were questions on legal deposit, copyright, Member training and the Guarantee of Service.

3.2.2 - New Developments in Library Services and Technology: Modernization of Information Services of the Parliamentary Library of the Czech Republic by Karel Sosna, Parliamentary Library, Parliament of the Czech Republic (IFLA Ref 077-PAR-2-E)

During Karel Sosna's presentation he gave details of the project to create an electronic library for the Czech Republic. One of the stages of the project was to send a questionnaire to 37 parliamentary libraries of which 22 replied. Questions following the presentation included retrospective cataloguing, relations with other libraries in the Czech Republic, especially the National Library and science libraries, and the effect of being a UN deposit library.

3.2.3 - New developments in Parliamentary research services and technology by Jacek Michalowski and Ewa Nawrocka, Research and Analysis Office, Senate of Poland (IFLA Ref 091-PAR-3-E)

This presentation was made by Ewa Nwarocka and included material obtained from a comparative study of 11 countries. Following this presentation there were questions on the use of outside consultants, return of material and dealing with "classified" material.

Those present:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK); Richard Paré (Canada), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), N K Singh (India), John Joseph (India), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Brit Floistad (Norway), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Emilia Lamaro (Italy), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Marga Coing (Germany), Ercan Durdular (Turkey), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Todorche Lukarevski (Macedonia), Aida Nossier (Egypt), Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Wafaa Abdel Elah (Egypt), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), Mohamed Lathi Abdel-Hadi (Egypt), Shaban Khalifa (Egypt), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Anne Pries (Netherlands), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Shiou-jyuan Jewel Chen (Taiwan), Jane Lindley (Turkey), Rosa Maria Grau Gaudix (Spain), Siiri Sillajoe (Estonia), Aare Kasemets (Estonia), Vigdis Grasto (Norway), Nina Svendsen (Norway), Stine Marie Berner (Norway), Kaarina Puttonen (Finland), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Cecile Arnaud (France), Denis Deguenon (Benin), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Erik Spicer (Canada), Emilia Gallego (European Parliament, Luxembourg), Frank Kirkwood (Canada), Suchata Youyod (Thailand), Young Hee Park (Korea), Gun Sik Hong (Korea), Jeong Ran Kim (Korea), Hyun-Koo Lee (Korea), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Juan Carlos da Silva (Basque, Spain).

APLAP (Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Asia and the Pacific)

Aurora Simandjuntak reported that the fourth Biennial Conference of the Association was held in Canberra, Australia in October 1996 and attended by representatives of 23 parliamentary libraries. The main subject discussed was cooperation between the parliamentary libraries of the region: various strategies to aid this were agreed including dissemination of key documentation in electronic form, preferably via the Internet, a regional Clearing House for parliaments without Internet access, prompt response to information requests, closer alliance with other international parliamentary associations in the region, the establishment of mechanisms to aid staff training, and the setting up of a small secretariat.

The fifth Biennial Conference will be held in Manila Philippines in October 1998. APLAP publishes a Newsletter, prints the proceedings of its Conference and is planning to publish an APLAP Communication Directory at the end of 1997.

APLA (Association of Parliamentary Libraries of Australasia)
[Home Page: http://www.gil.com.au/~nickb/apla.html]

Rob Brian reported that at the 1997 AGM, which preceded the 13th Biennial Conference in Darwin, the name of the Association was changed from the Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Australasia to the name above. It had also been decided that in future there would be a charge for the hardcopy APLA Newsletter which is now available on the Association's Internet site (with a link from the Section Home Page). At the two-day conference there were presentations by the host parliament - the Northern Territory - and two discussion sessions with Members of the Parliament including one on, "Can Members suffer Information Overload?". Papers on a number of topics were presented, amongst them acquisition and storage of political party publications, the Victorian document management system, recent research in the use of electronic legal information and whether a code of conduct for staff is necessary.

The next APLA AGM will be hosted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library in Canberra in 1998 and the next Biennial Conference will be at the Queensland Parliamentary Library in Brisbane in 1999.

APLA had made a submission to the Joint Publications Committee following a proposal to discontinue The Australian Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers series. The submission urged that parliamentary papers should continue to be printed on acid-free paper and bound up in numbered and organised volumes and that they be made available to all the deposit libraries. The final decision on the proposal is not yet known.

APLIC/ABPAC (Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Canada/L'Association des Bibliothécaires Parlementaires au Canada)

Richard Paré reported that the 12th Biennial Conference was held in Toronto, Ontario in October 1996 with the general theme "Changes in Parliamentary and Legislative Libraries". Topics on which presentations were made included changing expectations of clients, balancing "just in case" with financial realities, cost benefit analysis of electronic document delivery, managing electronic products, and developing parliamentary www sites and electronic media monitoring as an alternative to clippings.

There were 25 participants representing the libraries of seven provinces, one territory and the Library of Parliament.

The next conference is planned for fall 1998 in Yellowknife, North West Territories

He explained that a recent phenomenon in the networking of libraries in Canada had been the implementation of new library consortia. Three APLIC/ABPAC library members are participating in regional consortia and the Library of Parliament is currently involved in feasibility discussions for a consortium in the National Capital. Region. Issues under consideration include document delivery, common storage, and licensing with electronic publishers.

APLESA (Association of Parliamentary Libraries of Eastern and Southern Africa)

Tembi Mtine reported that the Association held an annual meeting in June 1997 in Malawi. Sadly the organiser of the meeting Mr B.B Liyawo of the Malawi Parliamentary library died a week before the meeting so the planned agenda could not be followed. Since a number of countries including Zimbabwe and Tanzania had not had the approval of their parliament to attend, the meeting addressed the question of how to ensure the attendance of all the parliamentary libraries in the region. It was a matter of regret that the whole group of 10 countries never met A new constitution, based on the APLA constitution was proposed.

The next meeting is planned for 1998 in Zambia when the new constitution will be on the agenda.

AAPLDA (Association of African Parliamentary Librarians, Documentalists and Archivists)

Kosi Kedem, a Member of the Parliament of Ghana sought the support of the Section for an initiative to strengthen the support for parliamentary libraries by all the member countries of the Union of African Parliaments so as to ensure adequate funding, support for training and the reaffirmation of support for the association (AAPLDA) under the management of the General Secretariat of the Union.

PARDOC (the association of French-speaking Parliamentary Libraries)

Gaston Bernier reported that there had been an evaluation of the PARDOC programme in June 1997. There were now 71 countries involved which include Vietnam and Egypt. There is a PARDOC Newsletter and bibliographies are produced under the sponsorship of L'Assemblée internationale des parliamentaires de langue francaise.

Nordic Countries

Brit Floistad reported that the librarians of the Nordic Countries had met in Stockholm immediately before the Section Pre-Conference. The meeting had celebrated 75 years of cooperation and discussed how Members and their staff could be encouraged to use new technology.

SARC countries

John Joseph reported that there had been no developments on the proposal to establish a meeting of parliamentary librarians in South Asian countries.

Latin America

Ximena Feliu Silva reported that no progress had been made with the intention to hold a second conference of parliamentary libraries of Latin America

ECPRD (European Centre for Parliamentary Documentation and Research) http://www.ecprd.org

[for an explanation of the aims, membership and funding of ECPRD see the minutes of the Pre-Conference in this Newsletter, at which John Wittenberg, one of the co-secretaries, presented ECPRD's Home Page - http://www.ecprd.org

Jennifer Tanfield reported the next annual meeting of the correspondents of ECPRD would be held in October 1997 at the European Parliament in Brussels.

NCSL (US National Conference of State Legislatures)

Bill Robinson reported that he had been in touch with the Executive Director of NCSL regarding attendance at IFLA meetings. While some discussion had been promising no one was able to attend the IFLA sessions because the NCSL Annual Conference was regularly scheduled just a few weeks before IFLA.

Other regional organisations

In Germany there is an organisation of all the lander (state) libraries, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Parlaments und Behõrdenbibiothecken.

Meetings of all the parliamentary libraries of Spain are also held.

There was a discussion of the role and organisation of Library Committees introduced by Nelson Masawi of Zimbabwe, where the Library Committee is now chaired by the Speaker and has established a sub-committee which approves accessions. Rob Brian explained that the Library Committee in New South Wales meets twice a year and discusses an agenda prepared by the Librarian. The Committee consists of 3 Members from each House and now meets over a light lunch. Erik Spicer recalled the history of the Library Committee in Canada which had been abolished for a time. Richard Paré said that the present Committee consisted of 7 Members with the chairmanship shared by a Senator and a Member from the lower House. Bill Robinson said that in Congress there was a Committee of 9 representing both chambers and that it provided protection and guidance to the Congressional Research Service and was its back-up when CRS declined to accept some types of political requests. Nick Bannenberg said that during his 25 years as Librarian of the Queensland Parliament there had been times with a committee and times without, and that Committees could be both an aid and an encumbrance. It could be difficult to get a quorum at meetings and he thought that Members would quickly tire of taking acquisition decisions. Marga Coing reported that at present in the German Parliament there was a committee which covered internal matters and major Library projects were put to this committee for approval. She meets the secretary and chairman of the committee before meetings and also advised talking to other members of the committee informally. In Germany there is also an IT Committee and a committee responsible for the new buildings in Berlin and there could be conflict between the committees.

Katalin Haraszti introduced a discussion of ways of obtaining feedback on Members' needs and their attitudes to the Library's services. She reported that in Hungary there had been a survey in 1994 which had been repeated in 1997. The surveys sought to discover how Members obtain information, the level of their knowledge of Library services, how they had found out about the Library and any suggestions for new services. The 1994 survey had provided many useful suggestions. The 1997 survey was being analysed and would probably be published. June Verrier explained some of the ways that Members were consulted in Australia. She mentioned special surveys and the use of the Library Committee, special meetings at which Members were invited to meet staff to talk about services and her practice of calling on every Member of each House, taking with her a profile of their use of the library and research services. Erik Spicer pointed out that a questionnaire was a form of PR for the Library and that it was useful to talk to new Members, to Members' staff and to party groups. Bruce Davidson explained the way that consultants working for the Library of the Parliament of Victoria were using two client focus groups, one group consisting of 20 Members and one of 20 Members' staff. The perceptions of library staff and the focus groups were being compared to identify possible problems.

Those present:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK); Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Bruce Davidson (Victoria, Australia), June Verrier (Australia), Emilia Gallega Perona (Belgium), Dick Toornstra (European Parliament), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Suelena Bandeira (Brazil), Marli Elisabeth Schreiber (Brazil), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Andrew Hubbertz (Canada), Francis Kirkwood (Canada), Richard Paré (Canada), Eric Spicer (Canada), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Branka Martincic (Croatia), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Edith Clausen (Denmark), Elise Holt (Denmark), Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Denmark), Benny Høyer (Denmark), Karen Prehn (Denmark), Annelise Quistorff (Denmark), Hanne Rasmussen (Denmark), Ase Rishøj (Denmark), Per Teglborg (Denmark), Wafaa Abdel Elah (Egypt), Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Aare Kasemets (Estonia), Ene Loddes (Estonia), Sylvi Peets (Estonia), Siiri Sillajóe (Estonia), Louise Dowling (France), Tuula H Laaksovirta (Finland), Helka Mälkki (Finland), Irga Peltonen (Finland), Kaarina Puttonen (Finland), Marga Coing (Germany), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary), Ravinder K Chadha (India), John Joseph (India), N K Singh (India), Emma Salma Kumaidi (Indonesia), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Emilia Lamaro (Italy), Gabriella Marotta (Italy), Gholamreza Fadaie Araghi (Iran), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Murat Arenov (Kazakhstan), Young Hee Park (Korea), Jeong Ran Kim (Korea), Rimgaile Galickiene (Lithuania), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia), Banzragch Odonjil (Mongolia), Anne Pries-Heike (Netherlands), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Ruth MacEachern (New Zealand), Rhina Mayorga (Nicaragua), Stine Marie Berner (Norway), Brit Fløistad (Norway), Vigdis Grasto (Norway), Ingun Grytli (Norway), Nina Svendsen (Norway), Adnan Owda (Palestinian Legislative Council), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Ewa Nawrocka (Poland), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Irina Andreeva (Russia), Anna Zaktkaliková (Slovakia), Violetta Botaco (Slovenia), Natasa Glavnik (Slovenia), Margareta Brundin (Sweden), Eva Falk (Sweden), Eva Lundeborg (Sweden), Ernst Frischknecht (Switzerland), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Juan Carlos da Silva (Basque, Spain), Rosa Maria Grau Gaudix (Spain), Boonruksa Chomchuen (Thailand), Suchata Youhod (Thailand), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), Ercan Durdular (Turkey), Jane Ann Lindley (Turkey), Shiou-jyuan Jewel Chen (Taiwan, Republic of China), Hanna P Voskresenska (Ukraine), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Lindlyn Chiwandamira (Zimbabwe), Nelson Masawi (Zimbabwe), Christiane Coelko da Silva, Alexandra Gorina, Marjalda Hejkkilä, Ragnar Helin, Falcon Pika.

Elise Holt, Head of the Information and Documentation Department, welcomed everyone to the Workshop which was being held in the room originally used for the two chambers of the Danish Parliament to meet together. An earlier plan to meet in the former Upper Chamber (the second chamber was abolished in 1953) had to be dropped because of maintenance work.

Bill Robinson, Chairman of the Section, said how much the members of the Section had appreciated the previous night's visit to the Workers' Museum and the typical Danish supper. He also expressed the Section's thanks to Margareta Brundin and Eva Falk for all their work in organising the splendid Pre-Conference in Stockholm. His impression of that meeting was that it showed the Section in two guises, open and friendly, and effective and serious. The open and friendly spirit was the best environment for the exchange of ideas and knowledge - the main reason why participants came to IFLA. The effective and serious aspect of the Section meant that its agendas and goals were achieved; useful publications were produced, a valuable Home Page had been set up, the Section had the best record for translating its conference papers and it held more meetings, all well attended, than any other Section.

Elise Holt explained that there were 179 Members of the Danish Parliament, served by an Administration with 360 staff, 44 of whom were in the Information and Documentation Department.

Annelise Quistorff, Head of the Section on the Library within the Information and Documentation Department, explained some of the history of the Parliament and the Library. Its book stock originated with the Estates Assemblies of the 1830s but the Library was established in 1850, as part of the first Parliament, following the Danish Constitution Act of 1849. The Parliament and the Library had been housed in a previous Christiansborg Palace, burnt down in 1884, but in 1918 both moved into the present rebuilt Palace. The Library had occupied the same reading rooms, close to the committee rooms, since 1918. In 1930 the archives became part of the Library.

The Library's objectives are to provide information to Members of Parliament, previous Members, Ministers and previous Ministers, staff of the Administration, staff of the party groups, the Press Gallery and government civil servants. The Library also takes part in the cooperation of public and research libraries although the loan of its stock is restricted by the need to make the collection available to MPs. There is very limited access for the public - scholars and others may by special arrangement use material which is not easily accessible elsewhere. The Library answers telephone inquiries from the public about the Folketing and current legislation, but inquiries about parliamentary papers and acts are referred to major public libraries, all of which have collections of parliamentary material.

The Library's stock concentrates on law, economy, politics, history and international affairs. It consists of some 220,000 books and 3,400 periodicals (2,000 current subscriptions). There is a newspaper cuttings collection and access to on-line databases. There are 16 Library staff; the head of the Library, 7 librarians, 2 academics, 4 office clerks, one messenger and one book-binder. Part-time students provide some additional help. During sessions the Library is open from 9-17:00; 9-15:00 outside session. It is always open when debates are in progress. The Library budget is approximately 6 million Danish krone. Staff salaries absorb 75% of the budget. Book purchases (5%) and periodical purchases (10%) account for 15%. Another 6% is spent to access databases and 1% on binding.

Books published since 1980 can be retrieved from an on-line catalogue, MINLIB, also used by government libraries and, since 1993, using the ALEPH system. Special collections include "statute files" arranged under 50 main subject headings, which record all work relevant to legislation, including bills which have not become law. There is also a collection of statutes and parliamentary journals from other countries, now restricted to the Nordic countries, France, Germany and the UK.

Use of the Library has rapidly increased as a result of grants to allow Members to hire more personal staff.

The Archives include unpublished material from parliamentary committees. Until 1985 this material was only available in the Parliament, but then became available in the National Library and from October 1997 all documents will be available on the website of the Folketing.

The Information Service has been part of the Library since 1970 as a service providing analytical information to Members. It is not much used by Members who prefer to use the research services of the party groups but it deals with a lot of requests from foreign parliaments.

Finally Annelise Quistorff mentioned a study which she had carried out on the role of Members of Parliament in parliamentary library administration (library committees) which covers 29 European libraries. She also explained the role of the Supervisors in the Folketing. The Library is supervised by two Members presenting the two major parties.

[Copies of the full text of Annelise Qusitorff's presentation, and of a separate paper The role of Members of Parliament in parliamentary library administration are available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Ms Birthe Ronn Hornbech, Liberal Party Member of the Folketing and Supervisor of the Library, talked about the importance to her of the Library and the ways in which she used it. Since Denmark is a small country, its politicians are in close contact with the citizens and need to keep up to date with all areas of political activity. Any Member is entitled to present bills and they turn to the Library for information to help them to prepare such bills. All the information provided by the Library is of a non-political nature, unbiased and impartial. The Folketing also monitors the work of the government and Members rely on the media, including newspapers, to be aware of problems. The Library has a newspaper collection and also a newspaper cutting system. Members also expect the Library to keep copies of documents which they will wish to refer to at a future date. She believes that the Library should remain in its central location in the Folketing but it is one of her jobs as a Supervisor, at a time when space in the Folketing is under pressure, to ensure that it does stay there.

As a lawyer she relies on having access to the law books, acts of parliament and "statute files" held in the Library as well as to the collection of debates. The Library also serves the staff of committees, the experts working for party groups and journalists working in the parliament. Her need for help from the library can arise from taking part in debates around the country, making television appearances, acting as the chairman of the Folketing Ecclesiastical Committee or preparing for the session ahead.

She explained the library supervisor system which involves two supervisors who are Members of Parliament, one from the governing party or coalition and one from the opposition. The supervisors are elected by the parties and the librarians know that if they can convince the two supervisors on a particular issue then they will probably have convinced a majority in the parliament.

Talking about the use of computers in the Folketing she said that, although there was now a huge range of information available in the Member's office, she did not wish to spend hours in front of the computer screen searching for something that a trained librarian could find in a moment. As a library supervisor she believed that the library staff should continue to operate the new information systems and help Members of the Folketing to find the information they need. She also pointed to the danger of experts imposing their views and the need for politicians to act to preserve the freedom of the individual. She supported the view of Christopher Lasch in his book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, that there is a danger that knowledge and information could be confused and that information technology could weaken democracy. An important work of parliamentary librarians would be to process information and knowledge. In her view information technology could never replace books, which would have a future side by side with information technology.

[a full text of Ms Hornbech's speech is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Ms Hanne Rasmussen explained that the Library contacts all new Members of Parliament and offers an introduction to the Library and its services. This invitation is also offered to the staff of the political parties and to Members' secretaries.

Every fortnight a new accessions list is published and distributed through the Parliament. From January 1997 users have been able to request book loans on-line via the parliamentary Intranet. The Library has access to the Internet and to a number of databases which cover references to legislative documents, an index to, and full text of, the papers of Standing Committees, Retisinformation (which contains all Danish legislation), RIXLEX (the Swedish parliamentary and legal database), Eurobases including CELEX, news databases, the Danish Statistical Bureau database and a biographic database. Several CD-ROM reference works are also available either on the Intranet or in the Library.

Newspaper clippings are taken from the 15 most important Danish papers. The collection goes back to 1975 but less important subjects are discarded after 5 years. She explained how the Library would assist a Member in a number of situations - preparing a bill, preparing for a debate, requiring general information or documentation and replying to constituents. She also gave details of how the Library works with the Standing Committee Department and the Members' Department. The latter department is responsible for the Parliament Shop, which supplies legislative documents to the public, for EU-Information to the public and Members and for dealing with Members' routine questions. There is also a Computer Department whose tasks overlap with those of the Library. The two departments are working together on training courses on Internet use and use of CD-ROM. Regular meetings are held to coordinate the information work of all parliamentary departments,.

[A full text of Ms Rasmussen's presentation is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Elise Holt set out some of the future projects of the Library. From October 1997 there would be an electronic café in the Library with two PCs attached to the Intranet and two stand-alone PCs plus a scanner and a printer. A librarian will be present for two hours a day to assist users and carry out searches on the more specialised databases. There is a proposal that the Library should become responsible for assistance to the 24 standing committees, employing 4 academic staff to provide and compile information for them. This might lead to a need for additional staff expertise in economics and statistics, including model building. As a result of developments in information technology, including the electronic version of the Nordic union catalogue of foreign parliamentary activity and legislation, it will be necessary to review the Library's holdings of foreign collections. In line with the Danish government IT policy programme, The Information Society in the year 2000, in future both the National Library and the parliament will not archive printed documents if they exist in electronic versions. A new integrated electronic information handing system is expected to be in use in the parliament in 2 to 3 years' time.

Finally she pointed out that the parliamentary library was synonymous with its staff and emphasised the need to "Love your staff".

[The text of Elise Holt's presentation is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

During questions Marius Burgers said that the South African Parliament was introducing non-partisan research for committees while not replacing the researchers of the party groups and asked how often the Supervisors met (normally twice per session). In answer to a question on priorities and services to former Members it was explained that current MPs had priority. The role of the MPs' Services Department - dealing with security, the Post Office, restaurants etc - was explained. Anna Zatkalikova said that although there was an electronic café in the Slovakian Parliament, Members now had computer "notebooks". In response to a question about allocation of funds for research between services for the Parliament as a whole and party research staff it was explained that funds were allocated to the parties on the basis of the number of votes cast for the party. Other details given were that MPs have no access to the Library outside the staff working hours except via the Intranet, that no anticipatory research was done because sufficient staff were not available for this, and that the bookbinder dealt with some of the Library's work but outside binders were also used.

Benny Hoyer, the Webmaster for the Folketing site, said that he was a librarian by training who had been given the task of starting the Internet site for the Parliament which would go public on 10th October 1997. The objective of the site was to increase the availability to the public of all documents, making them available more speedily and easily. The site would include Members' biographies with clickable email addresses for each Member; there would also be party policy documents and a tour of the parliamentary building. He demonstrated some of material included on the Home Page www.folketinget.dk.

Nick Bannenberg, Queensland Parliamentary Librarian and the Section's Information Coordinator, explained the establishment of the Section webpage which his parliament had agreed to host. He paid tribute to Kim Dowling of his library, who had done most of the work in setting up the Home Page, made special mention of Irina Andreeva, Richard Pare, Gaston Bernier, Ernst Kohl and Marialyse Delano, who had given great support with translations, and then demonstrated the features of the site, located at:

3.4.8 - Legislative Web Sites

Bruce Davidson, Librarian of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia explained that he was not, as first suggested, giving a guide to parliamentary or legal websites because these were now easy to find on the Internet. The development of these sites had given the public immediate access to the democratic process. He explained some of the ways in which his Library was involved in producing an electronic version of their Members' Handbook publication, leaving the Member's entry in the form submitted, but including all sorts of added value such as constituency and party identifiers.

He suggested that any site developed more than 12 months ago probably lacked functionality by today's standard and listed some of the features which should now be expected of a parliamentary site. These included contents bars; a search engine; access without the need for special software; ease of downloading and pdf (portable document form) format, especially for legislative documents; enhanced access to current information; bill tracking; biographical information about Members and clickable electoral maps. Links available to other sites could also be vastly extended for the public's benefit.

The problems of assuming that Internet technology can be used for archiving parliamentary material were also mentioned, as there was a risk that older material might be taken off to make room for more current material. However technology now allowed checks to make sure that documents had not been tampered with so parliaments could feel more confident when putting up material. He suggested that an outstanding site needed to be a team effort with input from librarians drawing on their understanding of information management, knowledge of the audience and its needs and ability to add value to the basic information.

[The text on which Bruce Davidson based his presentation is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Nick Bannenberg explained that since 1977 his Library, which serves the 89 Members of the unicameral Queensland Parliament, had been recording live off-air television news and current affairs programmes broadcast by the 5 public television stations in Brisbane. These programs can be rebroadcast to each room in the parliament and Members may also borrow videotapes. All material is kept for two weeks and some 1,200 items annually are kept permanently on master tape. These items are searchable via an on-line retrieval system. The holding, which consists of more than 4,000 hours of recordings, has become recognised as a nationally significant resource. The objectives are to record historic political events, maintain an archive of Members' appearances and provide a service to Members unable to view the original broadcast.

The master tapes have undergone significant ageing over the 20 years, with additional problems resulting from frequent use, recopying, poor storage environment etc. Given that analogue videotapes have a limited shelf life an alternative format for preservation was needed. A consultant was commissioned and recommended the use of Compact Disk technology to digitise and store the data. The main benefits were the robustness of this medium and the speed of accessing the data. Problems included the huge amount of time to reformat the data and the relative newness of the process. The Library obtained funding for the necessary equipment to allow one machine operator to complete the work in two years, and work commenced in December 1996. The process results in enhancement of the video and audio signal and, when the transfer has been completed, the citation for each recorded segment is entered on the Library's CONCORD database and is then retrievable by staff and clients. It can now be accessed on a 24 hour basis via the Internet.

During the presentation examples of badly damaged videotape were demonstrated and then shown after enhanced treatment prior to storage on CD. There was also an example of how video material could be searched in the Library's Research Databases via the Internet, and once selected, replayed in real time on a personal computer.

[Technical details of the project, and costs, can be obtained from Nick Bannenberg]

Mr Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Member of the Folketing and Chairman of the Liberal Party, told the Conference that he was "hooked" on the Internet. His daily procedure now started with opening his mailbox. His party had introduced its own Home Page two years ago. He had his own favourite sites on the net, which included Die Zeit and Die Welt.

He considered that the Internet would accelerate political change because of its openness. Dictatorship was based on monopoly of information, which could no longer be maintained. Some countries were trying to stop information appearing on the Internet but as a Liberal he did not support such censorship. It was suggested that those putting up material such as pornography and details of bomb making should be kicked off the net but no-one was forced to look at websites. He said that if illegal material was put on the net those responsible should be prosecuted. However since the Internet had no boundaries, there would be a need for international conventions to cover variations in laws.

Those present:

Bill Robinson (Chairman, USA), Jennifer Tanfield (Secretary, UK); Richard Paré (Canada), June Verrier (Australia), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Ravinder Kumar Chadha (India), N K Singh (India), John Joseph (India), Katalin Haraszti (Hungary), Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Kedibone Leshaba (South Africa), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Brit Floistad (Norway), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Gabriella Marotta (Italy), Emilia Lamaro (Italy), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Ximena Feliu (Chile), Marga Coing (Germany), Ercan Durdular (Turkey), Ismet Baydur (Turkey), Natasa Glavnik (Slovenia), Anna Zatkalikova (Slovakia), Suelena Bandeira (Brazil), Christian C Silva (Brazil), Takane Moriyama (Japan), Zana Bufi (Albania), Vjollca Hysenbegas (Albania), Neomi Kimhi (Israel), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Aida Nossier (Egypt), Sawsan El Hennawy (Egypt), Abdel-Elah Wafaa (Egypt), Emma Salma Kumaida (Indonesia), Marius Burgers (South Africa), Maher Sarhan (Egypt), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Anne Pries (Netherlands), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Anita Dudina (Latvia), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Shiou-jyuan Jewel Chen (Taiwan).

Introduction

Bill Robinson explained that the name of the Section had been altered to make clear that its interest focused on both library services and research services for parliaments. In some parliaments these two services were combined in one department, but in others they were separate services. This was the first occasion on which time for a special meeting on research had been scheduled and it might be that the Section would seek a similar slot at future conferences - a Sunday meeting did not conflict with other IFLA meetings.

Developments in Research Organisation

June Verrier opened the discussion, pointing out that the client, the parliamentarian, was of prime importance and that a research service which did not listen and adapt to the MP's wishes would not survive.

The 1996 Election in Australia had brought the highest ever number of new Members to the Federal Parliament and this had made clear the importance of making sure that the MP knows what the information services can do for him or her. The new Australian government had introduced a review of all public sector activities with a view to reducing their size and cost. Within the Parliament proposals were made to amalgamate departments and as part of this reorganisation the library and research services (which serve both chambers) had been integrated. Following a User Survey which revealed that Members wanted more individual services, individual client work now took priority in a structure designed as a "one stop shop", with librarians and researchers working together in subject groups. The two sections within the department are now "Client Services" with 110 staff and "Resources" with 50 staff, including cataloguers and some IT staff (other IT staff are located in another department). There had been 17 voluntary redundancies but the slimming of staff resources was due to continue. (In Australia as whole 40,000 public service jobs have gone)

During the subsequent discussion and question session June Verrier made it clear that she did not think there was one unique solution to the best organisation of information services, each parliament needed to assess the needs and problems of its own parliamentarians. Anna Zatkalikova said that in the Slovakian Parliament the research and library services had been brought together at the beginning of 1997 for reasons similar to those of Australia, although reference information was still provided from outside this group. Marga Coing gave some information about the situation in the German Bundestag, which is now planning the move to Berlin where there will also be a "leaner" parliamentary staff. At one time the librarians and researchers worked together but had later split up and at present there were problems because of non-compatible computer systems. To help the parliamentarians, who have difficulty in understanding who does what, a "hot line" had been set up

Research Products and Services

Bill Robinson detailed some of the written products of research services, which can include short reports for all Members, detailed background reports, tracking documents on what the legislature is doing and which may need updating as often as daily, and policy documents which set out a problem area and the alternatives for dealing with it. The American Congress now has an Intranet on which some of the CRS written output is available.

Anna Zatkalikova explained the new Budget Analysis work being undertaken in the Slovak Parliament to help Members to deal with amendments in committee. It was the task of the special researchers dealing with this analysis work to produce Parliament's final report on the Budget.

Quality Control

Richard Paré first gave details of the growth of the research service in the Federal Parliament in Ottawa. This had grown from 6 staff in 1965 to 89 currently (62 researchers). The service provides research for individual Members, including studies on public policy issues, statistical and economic analysis and interpretation, policy assessment and comparative analyses of legislation in other jurisdictions, arguments in support of a particular point of view and any other research requested by Members in connection with their parliamentary duties. The response can be an extensive study, a brief memorandum, a telephone discussion, a briefing for a Member or group of Members or one of the service's publications. Support to Committees includes help with planning the schedule for committee hearings, proposing lists of witnesses, briefing papers on issues or briefing notes for hearings, suggested lines of questions, oral briefings, in-depth papers, draft reports, press notices and a final briefing session on the report. The Research Branch also provides briefing and background material to assist parliamentary associations and delegations. Researchers prepare a variety of publications on topical issues and organise Seminars on current and upcoming issues.

He said that Quality Control starts with the hiring process, which is strictly on merit and selects people able to apply a non-partisan approach. All written material is sent out with an evaluation form asking if the response is satisfactory and inviting comments on the response and more generally on the work of the Research Branch. He gave some details of a User Survey sent out in early 1997. There is an annual appraisal system for all employees which influences promotion.

Richard Paré emphasised the importance of objectivity and lack of partisanship to a legislative research organisation, which should at the same time assist its clients to present the policies, arguments and points of view that they wish to promote. The Canadian service adds a written disclaimer on projects prepared to meet the requirements of the Member, indicating that the views should not be regarded as those of the Branch or the author.

Four types of publication are prepared, Current Issue Reviews, Legislative Summaries, Backgrounders and Mini-Reviews. There are guidelines to ensure clarity and consistency in written output, and topics for the publications are approved by the Management Group. Each Division has a Director who examines every report prepared within the division for clarity, objectivity, accuracy, format and general impression. For Legislative Summaries a lawyer is assigned to work with the research officer as consultant on legal terminology, statutory interpretation etc. These Summaries include background, a description of the bill with a clause by clause summary and analysis, and a summary. Legislative Summaries can be accessed through the Internet via the Canadian Parliament Web site: http://www.parl.gc.ca . Other publications are not currently available on the Internet but it is planned to make them available on the Parliament's Intranet.

[A full text of Richard Paré's report is available in English from Jennifer Tanfield]

Questions included details of how individual research officers were assessed and how decisions are made on what should be available on the Intranet and the Internet. June Verrier reported that all Australian research publications were available on the Internet and Rob Brian that at present summaries of New South Wales papers were on the Internet and sold by the Government Bookshop and that there was an intention to put the whole paper on the Internet.

Receiving and Tracking Requests

Jennifer Tanfield reported that an article on the computerised enquiries database used by the House of Commons Research Service to track enquiries, and to give researchers access to the word processed answer, had recently appeared in the Library Association periodical Program (An enquiries management database at the House of Commons Library using Basisplus, Vol 31 No 3 July 1997). Nick Bannenberg mentioned the electronic tracking service used by researchers in the Queensland Parliamentary Library and June Verrier gave details of the electronic system recently introduced in Canberra - in this case all enquiries are entered, including those which receive only an oral response and the record includes details of the time spent on the request by all the members of staff involved. Staff had found it useful to be able to track work carried out (or in progress) by colleagues and this had overcome any reluctance about the use of such a system. Electronic tracking systems are also in use in New South Wales and in the Congressional Research Service. June Verrier stressed the importance of keeping this enquiry information confidential - parliamentarians did not want details of the enquiries which they place made public.

General discussion and future research meetings

Katalin Haraszti explained the early steps towards establishing a research service for the Hungarian Parliament and asked members of the Section to send any articles on the history of their research service. [details of this request are given later in the Newsletter]. Marius Burgers mentioned that in South Africa the decision had been taken to establish a Research Department outside the Library.

A discussion followed about how to meet the special needs of researchers in the IFLA context. There was general agreement that the meeting had been a very useful one. Other points made included, the intertwining of library and research services - that a modern parliamentary library was incomplete without a research service; the benefit of librarians and researchers meeting together; the fear that if parliaments sent only one person to IFLA then librarians would be the ones who missed out; the benefit of including systems librarians; that the officers and the Standing Committee should include a balance of librarians and researchers: and whether a separate research conference should be organised in the same city as the IFLA conference at the same time or whether the pre-conference could focus on research.

4 - Publications

This section gives an overview of new relevant publications :

The book edited by Rob Brian on the occasion of the workshop in Beijing in 1996 has now been published:

Parliamentary libraries and information services of Asia and the Pacific: papers prepared for the 62^nd IFLA conference Beijing, China August 25 -31, 1996 - Ed. by Rob Brian under the auspices of the Section of Libraries and Research Services for parliaments.- München: Saur, 1997. - 106 p. (IFLA publications; 83) ISBN 3-598-21808-7.

Guide practique a l'usage des bibliotheques législatives : version francaise, mise a jour, de Guidelines for legislative libraries edité; par Dermot Englefield / Traduction par Guy Archambault. Editeur: Ernst Kohl. - La Haye : Federation Interntaionale des Associations de Bibliothecaires et des Bibliotheques, 1997. -XVI, 145 p. (IFLA professional reports ; 51) ISBN 90-70916-61-4

Ernst Kohl has also produced a list of core European materials for parliamentary libraries, and there are still some copies available:

Empfehlende Biblographie zum Grundbestand europäischer Parlamentsbibliotheken : Deutsche Publikationen = Recommended Reading List of European Parliamentary Core Materi