Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments

CIRCULAR NEWSLETTER
Vol 18 - No. 1
December 1998

1. Introductory Remarks
2. The 64th IFLA Conference, Amsterdam 1998

2.1 Standing Committee Meetings
2.2 Open Meeting
2.3 Informal Meeting
2.4 Workshop
2.5 Special meeting on Research

3. The role of the information co-ordinator
4. Section Finances
5. Elections for Standing Committee
6. Publications
7. Announcements
8. The 65th IFLA Conference Bangkok
9. Standing Committee Members
10. Section e-mail and fax addresses

1. Introductory Remarks

First of all I must apologize for the fact that this Newsletter, although quite a big one, is not complete. You will miss the minutes of the Pre-conference which we had in Brussels at the European Parliament and the Belgium Parliament. As I had lots of work to do for my own library I just did not have enough time to edit the minutes of Brussels. But I promise to include them in the May Newsletter. In the meantime, if anyone would like the transcript of the talk by Emmanuella Giavarra given in Brussels during the workshop on copyright, please ask me or Nick Bannenberg and we will send you a copy. The same work excuse is the reason you will receive this Newsletter a bit later than usual.

I would like to thank those who contributed to the Newsletter. Jennifer Tanfield, Nick Bannenberg, Rob Brian and Bill Robinson made major contributions by taking the minutes of many of the meetings that we had in Amsterdam.

It was a big pleasure to see so many colleagues in Brussels and Amsterdam. Both conferences were very well attended and the standard of both were high. In this Newsletter you will find the minutes of the meetings held in Amsterdam. The two conferences brought us many interesting experiences, and we hope that this will also be the case for Bangkok 1999.

In item 8 of this Newsletter you will find some preliminary information on Bangkok. In the May 1999 Newsletter, and in the personal letter of invitation that Jennifer Tanfield will send to you early next year, you will find more details of the programme and the arrangements. Jennifer will visit Bangkok in January to meet our colleagues from the Thai Parliament and to see which hotels should be recommended for the Section. To take advantage of the reduced costs of early booking ($ 350 instead of $ 420) you must register not later 15 March 1999. This is earlier than in previous years where the deadline was 1 May. As an appendix to this newsletter you will find copies of the Registration Forms for Bangkok and of the preliminary programme.

As you may know the German Bundestag maintains on its web site the World Directory of National Parliamentary Libraries and the World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries of Federated States and Autonomous Regions. Quite a lot of the entries still give information from 1995 and need updating. You are kindly but urgently requested to modify your own entry or if necessary, to enter a new one. It is quite easy to change your entry online but do not forget that you always have to end on the last page of the questionnaire. Only the submission of the last page triggers the submission to be sent to the German Bundestag. The internet address of the web site is: http://www.bundestag.de/datbk/library/wd.htm

In the Newsletter you will find information of the transfer of our section's web site, maintained by Information Co-ordinator Nick Bannenberg, from the Queensland Parliamentary Library to the IFLANET server at the National Library in Canada. The new address is: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s3/sparll.htm

Jennifer 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 Bangkok in 1999.

Jan Keukens, editor.
24 December 1998

2. The 64th IFLA Conference, Amsterdam 1998

2.1 STANDING COMMITTEE MEETINGS

Minutes of Standing Committee I, Sunday 16 August
The meeting was attended by the following members of the Standing Committee:

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

Attending as observers were the following:
Nola Adcock (Australia), Rob Johnston (Australia), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Johannes van Zutphen (Belgium, Flemish Parliament), Florence Butale (Botswana) Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Francis Kirkwood (Canada), Mary E. Dickerson (Ontario, Canada), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Daniela Sraga (Croatia), Sansan Elhennawy (Egypt), Waafa Ali Abdel-Elah (Egypt), Aare Karemets (Estonia), Siiri Sillajõe (Estonia), Marju Rist (Estonia), Ene Loddes (Estonia), Sven Backlund (European Parliament), Zita Mazzario (European Parliament Brussels), Karina Puttonen (Finland), Charles Brown (Ghana), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Eleni Mitrakou (Greece), Beata Csako Szarka (Hungary), N K Singh (India), Kumar Ravinder Chadha (India), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia), Takashi Tsukamoto (Japan), Mineo Miyawaki (Japan), Anita Dudina (Latvia), Renata Blagniene (Lithuania), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Pleasance Purser (New Zealand), Marit Kleppa (Norway), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Liana Qweider (Palestine), Patricio Aranda Torres (Peru), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Oleg Kumalagov (Russia), Georgina Gadusova (Slovak Republic), Violeta Bottazzo (Slovenia), Renata Khataza Shilubana (South Africa), Albert Mzinkulu Ntunja (South Africa), Fevzi Celik (Turkey), Ali Riza Cihan (Turkey), Tuncer Yilmaz (Turkey), Ishak Bozkurt (Turkey), Keith Cunninghame (United Kingdom), Eduard Afonin (Ukraine), Debbie Rabina (USA), Donna Scheeder (USA).

(65 people, 38 countries)

2.2.1. Opening of the Meeting

The chairman, Jennifer Tanfield, welcomed those attending the meeting and explained that it was the practice of the Section to encourage all members to attend Standing Committee meetings, although only the members of the Standing Committee could vote.

2.1.2. Roll Call

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

2.1.3. Approval of the Agenda

The draft agenda was approved.

2.1.4. Approval of Minutes of the Standing Committee meetings in Copenhagen on August 30 and 5 September 1997.

The Minutes of the meetings were approved.

2.1.5. Officers' Reports

Membership: Jennifer Tanfield reported that the membership of the Section was 102 compared with 104 in July 1997. The Section had lost one library association. Finances: It was agreed that the finances would be on the agenda of the second SC meeting.

2.1.6. News form the IFLA Co-ordinating Board

Jennifer Tanfield explained that IFLA was arranged into Divisions each with a Co-ordinating Board composed of officers of Sections in the Division. The chairman of each Co-ordinating Board sits on the Professional Board which determines IFLA policy on professional matters. The Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments is part of the General Research Libraries Division, along with the National Libraries Section and the University Libraries Section. One of the functions of the Co-ordinating Board was to pass on information from the Professional Board. Jennifer Tanfield, Jan Keukens and Nick Bannenberg had attended the Co-ordinating Board meeting of Friday 14 August, and the following matters were discussed:

IFLA is very much interested in the evaluation of the annual conferences. This professional evaluation of the IFLA conferences started in Copenhagen 1997. Jennifer Tanfield requested all members to fill in the evaluation form included in the conference bag. The registration fee for Bangkok will be $350 before 15 March 1999, after 15 March it will be $420.

Another item discussed at the PB-meeting was IFLA rules for election to the Standing Committee and for officers of the Section. One may serve two terms of two years as an officer, and two terms of four years as a member of the Standing Committee. This rule can become a problem if one is eligible for a second term of two years as an officer but is not eligible for the Standing Committee anymore, because the eight year term is over. This will be the case for the Secretary of the Section Jan Keukens, in 1999. This could create problems for the continuity of the Section, as Jennifer Tanfield would be resigning as Chairman in 1999, and Jan Keukens would be forced to resign in 1999 as well, according to the present rules. At the moment a committee of IFLA was preparing propositions for the change of the IFLA statutes which are quite complicated. The Co-ordinating Board would ask this committee to look at this problem as well.

2.1.7 Details of Sectional Activities at the Amsterdam Conference.

Jennifer Tanfield read through the Section program and gave detailed information on timing, meeting places etc. Suggestions for topics for discussion at the informal meeting were made. The topics suggested included:
• Should a parliamentary library have its own IT-staff; relations between Library and IT
• The role of the Internet on collection development
• Co-operation of established and evolving new parliamentary libraries by twinning
• Role of Intranet in Parliaments
• What service should be given to the staff of a MP in his constituency
• Quality control of electronic information
• The information role of the parliament to the citizens. What information is on the Intranet, what information is on the Internet.
• How to deal with the administration of the Parliament. How do you convince your administration that a library is not the same as the other services of the Parliament.
• How to cope with audio visual materials
• Inter-Parliamentary Research Services. Creation of an interlibrary network.
• Languages of the web sites of Parliaments

2.1.8 Update on Sectional projects approved and partially funded by the IFLA Professional Board.

Jan Keukens reported on this subject.

a) 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, has been delayed. The manuscripts of the Spanish and English version are completed. To date a publisher had not been found.

b) Parliamentary Libraries and Research Services of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

The manuscript of this publication was completed and Sauer Verlag would publish it this fall.

c) Translations of Guidelines for Legislative Libraries

The Guidelines had been translated and published into Spanish, French, German and Arabic. The Russian translation had been completed and will be published by the Russian Duma.

d) Parliamentary Libraries and Information Services of Asia and the Pacific

These papers had been published in 1997; the project is finished.

2.1.9. The World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries On-Line

The Section's World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries was now accessible on the Web page of the German Bundestag, but most of the entries needed updating. 40 countries had already updated their entries, however most of the information was still from 1995. Many parliamentary libraries without access to the Internet were unable to do the updating themselves. Jennifer Tanfield had asked SC-members to be regional co-ordinators for those who had no access to the Internet. After some discussion it was decided that a decision would be made in 1999 about removing the outdated entries.

Minutes of Standing Committee II Friday 21 August

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

Jennifer Tanfield (Chairman, UK), Jan Keukens (Secretary, Netherlands) Irina Andreeva (Russia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Marga Coing (Germany), John Joseph (India), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Tembi Mtine (Zambia), Richard Paré (Canada), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic).

Attending as observers were the following:

Nola Adcock (Australia), Rob Johnston (Australia), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Gail Dunston (Victoria, Australia), Florence Butale (Botswana) Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Mary E. Dickerson (Ontario, Canada), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Daniela Sraga (Croatia), Branka Martincic (Croatia), Sansan Elhennawy (Egypt), Waafa Ali Abdel-Elah (Egypt), Marju Rist (Estonia), Siiri Sillajõe (Estonia), Sven Backlund (European Parliament), Karina Puttonen (Finland), Martine Bricheux (France), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Eleni Mitrakou (Greece), Beata Csako Szarka (Hungary), N K Singh (India), Kumar Ravinder Chadha (India), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia),Hana Freidin (Israel), Emilia Lamaro (Italy), Takashi Tsukamoto (Japan), Anita Dudina (Latvia), Renata Blagniene (Lithuania), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Ellen Namhila (Namibia), Anne Pries-Heijke (Netherlands), Pleasance Purser (New Zealand), Marit Kleppa (Norway), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Liana Qweider (Palestine), Patricio Aranda Torres (Peru), Teresa Fonseca (Portugal), José Luis Tomé (Portugal), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Oleg Kumalagov (Russia), Georgina Gadusova (Slovak Republic), Violeta Bottazzo (Slovenia), Albert Mzinkulu Ntunja (South Africa), James Retief (South Africa, Western Cape), Jean-Claude Hayoz (Switzerland), Fevzi Celik (Turkey), Ali Riza Cihan (Turkey), Ishak Bozkurt (Turkey), Keith Cunninghame (United Kingdom), Eduard Afonin (Ukraine), Donna Scheeder (USA).

(63 people, 42 countries)

The agenda covering the two Standing Committee meetings was continued, commencing with item 4. Item 10, the Report on regional activities, was postponed to the end of the meeting.

2.1.10. Financial Report

Jan Keukens, Secretary and Treasurer of the Section, gave an overview of the sections finances. The section received NLG 1200 a year for administrative expenses as stationery and postage. For the current year part of this money would be spent on rental of the meeting room where the first SC meeting had been held. The other funds were related to the Section's projects, the publications under item 8 of the agenda. If there was any money left after the publication of a manuscript, the sum would be spent on the supply of free copies of the publication. Details of the expenditure would be published in the Section Newsletter.

2.1.11. Proposals for new Section projects

There were no proposals for new publications of the section.
At the informal meeting of Monday 17 August the item of twinning (established libraries assisting new evolving libraries) was discussed. This could be a new Section Project.
The SC decided to establish a small group on this to report back to the Standing Committee next year. Members of this group : Mary Dickerson - Coordinator, (Ontario, Canada); Karel Sosna (Czech Republic); Marialyse Delano (Chile) and Tembi Mtine (Zambia).

2.1.12. The 1999 IFLA Conference Bangkok

Jennifer Tanfield explained that it would be difficult to have a pre-conference outside Thailand. Australia had been offered as a possibility but was far away.and would involve expensive air travel. She would try to organise a one day pre-conference in Bangkok, with the theme of the library services of countries from that region of Asia. She would also try to arrange to have our Section Workshop in the Thai Parliament. If our Workshop could be organised on Wednesday, it would be possible for Section members to participate in workshops of other Sections on the Thursday. She would try to organise a real "workshop" with very brief presentations or statements and more time for practical discussions in small groups. Library management could be one interesting theme.

Jennifer Tanfield asked if she should continue to ask people to tell her if they wished her to write official letters of invitation for the IFLA Conferences to the Secretaries General of Parliaments. Most members supported this.

2.1.13 Election procedure for Standing Committee and Officers

Standing Committee:

In 1999 elections would be held for the SC and for new Officers of the Section. Nine positions would become vacant due to the retirement of members as parliamentary librarian or the termination of their second term of four years. At the end of 1998 all members would receive nomination forms from IFLA headquarters. Co-ordination of the election for the Standing Committee was the responsibility of the Chair. More detailed information on the election would be included in the next Newsletter.

Officers:

Jennifer Tanfield would be resigning as Chair of the Section in 1999, necessitating election of a new Chairman in Bangkok. Jan Keukens was willing to serve as Secretary for a second term of two years but a change of the IFLA-statutes would be necessary for that, as in 1999 his second term as a member of the Standing Committee would end. Two petitions would be sent to IFLA, one signed by members of the Standing Committee and one signed by other members of the Section, endorsing the petition of the Standing Committee Members. The text of the petition of the Standing Committee reads as follows:

"The following members of the Standing Committee of the above section have resolved that Jan Keukens be eligible to continue as Secretary of this Section until 2001 to complete a four year term. They contend that the operation of the current statutes linking membership of a Standing Committee and Officers should be suspended pending completion of the proposed review of the IFLA Statutes"

2.1.14. The role of the Information Co-ordinator

A paper setting out points for discussion on this matter was circulated by the Chair, and attached to the agenda for the SC meeting. Nick Bannenberg, Information Co-ordinator of the Section, spoke to this paper, which is reproduced later as Section 3 of this Newsletter.

Recently IFLA offered to transfer our current web site to IFLANET, their main server at the National Library of Canada. Nick Bannenberg explained the advantages and disadvantages of this transfer, strongly supporting the transfer. Following discussion, the SC agree to the transfer to IFLANET, and that Nick Bannenberg should carry out this operation.

2.1.15 Report on Regional Activities

ALLISSA (Association of Legislative Libraries and Information Services of South Africa)

James Retief reported that the idea for this association was born during a study tour of South African librarians in Canada in 1996. In April 1998 the inauguration of ALLISSA took place, the board was elected and a list of projects was made. ALLISSA operates under the auspices of the Association of Secretary Generals of the South African Parliaments. All the activities take place under their responsibility.

APLAP (Associations of Parliamentary Librarians of ASIA and the Pacific)

Aurora Simandjuntak reported that their annual meeting would be held in Manila in October 1998. It is expected that there would be fewer participants than usual due to the financial crisis in Asia.

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

Richard Paré reported that the 13th conference had been held in the new Legislative Assembly building of the Northwest Territories (inaugurated in 1993) and was attended by 25 participants. With the separation of the Northwest Territories into two new territories, a new parliament and a new parliamentary library was to be established. Topics of the conference were: development and improvement of library web sites; research services in legislative libraries; copyright issues; electronic information and publications; an update on the "National Summit to Solve the Problems of Authenticating, Preserving and Citing Legal Information in Digital Form." The new President-elect for APLIC/ABPAC is Eric Swanick. The next conference was scheduled for year 2000 in Halifax.

APLA (Association of Parliamentary Libraries of Australia)

Rob Brian reported on the extremely useful APLA homepage which is maintained by Nick Bannenberg and Kim Dowling. The principal issue that APLA faced during the year was the matter of copyright. Australian librarians were fighting to maintain their special copyright privileges under the Copyright Act of 1968. Those privileges were threatened by proposals for simplifying this act. A major topic for discussion at the annual general meeting was the matter of Digitising Parliamentary Records and Collections. The purpose of the discussion was to start a co-operative effort in the digitising of video material such as TV programs of political interest and to establish standards so that one another's digitised material could be used.
Margaret McGeehan was elected President, succeeding Rob Brian.

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

Ellen Namhila reported on the 4th annual meeting of APLESA that was held in April 1998 in Lusaka, Zambia. Two major decisions were implemented during this conference: the implementation of the 3rd APLESA resolution to amend the Constitution and the election of the new Executive Committee. Ellen Namhila was elected Chairperson for a period of two years. The main theme of the conference was "change towards excellence" The meeting pointed out that there was no blueprint model or strategy for creating excellent parliamentary libraries, because of operational and procedural differences in each country. A model that worked well in one country might be inappropriate in another. In some cases a model might work in one country because that country had the necessary resources and back-up services to sustain the service. Other topics were: legal deposit provision for libraries; staff training for parliamentary librarians; information sharing, what to share or exchange, and a presentation was held on the organisation of the Zambian Parliament. At the conference 4 resolutions were taken. Namibia will host the 5th conference in 1999.

PARDOC (The Association of French-speaking Parliamentary Libraries)

Martine Bricheux reported that in 1992 a program for developing countries was established. To date 16 countries had taken part in the program, which will continue for a further two years. In this time the aim is to establish traditional libraries. Later more sophisticated services will be provided. PARDOC was planning to put their information on the Internet [see http://www.francophonie.org/aiplf/]

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

Kosi Kedem, A Member of the Ghanaian Parliament, sought the support of the Section for an initiative to establish the AAPLDA. Though the Union of African Parliaments approved the idea of establishing AAPLDA in 1994, it had not yet been established. Funding was the number one problem. Jennifer Tanfield stressed that neither IFLA nor the Section itself had funding to support the proposed Association. She suggested that the librarians involved could book time in the divisional meeting rooms at the Bangkok Conference and subsequent conferences, to meet and to discuss items of interest to them. From the floor other suggestions were offered such as sharing the costs of meetings, or that APLESA should include all African parliamentary libraries in place of a number of regional African associations. Jennifer Tanfield suggested an investigation on the possibility of establishing an IFLA section of African countries that could meet in a one day pre/post-conference around the IFLA general conference. She would try to give Africa an emphasis during the Section program in Bangkok.

Nordic Countries

None of the parliamentary librarians of the Nordic countries were present at the Amsterdam conference due to conflicting commitments of a study trip to the USA and Canada. Jennifer Tanfield reported that the book on Nordic Libraries resulting from the pre-conference of 1997 would be published at the end of 1998. [see Section 6 for an up-date on this publication]

ECPRD (European Centre for Parliamentary Documentation and Research)

Karel Sosna reported that last year the ECPRD celebrated 20 years of activity. Assemblies from 45 European countries (including the CRS of the US Congress as an observer) now participated in its activities. The ECPDR concentrated its activities in three main fields: 1) The organisation of seminars, providing a unique opportunity for parliamentary officials to meet and discuss common problems; 2) The exchange of publications, often of a comparative nature and thus avoiding unnecessary duplication of research; 3) Parliamentary development programmes, to contribute to defining a common parliamentary culture based on the equal possession of parliamentary know-how as well as on a shared idea of democratic functioning of parliaments.

The publications of the ECPRD could be subdivided into regular and ad-hoc publications. The regular ones were the Directory, ECPRD News and the List of Studies. The structure of a seminar depended on the subject being considered and on the wishes of the parliament that had organised it. On average eight to ten seminars were organised each year. In 1998 seminars were or would be organised in Helsinki - Meeting of the Macroeconomic Research Working Group; Rome on simplification of legislation; Bucharest on electoral law; the European Parliament on the Net III; Madrid on territorial upper houses; the European Parliament in Brussels on library management software and use of thesauri, including EUROVOC; Warsaw on lobbying and parliamentary ethics; Brussels - Meeting of Macroeconomic Research Group again; and in Prague on the electronic parliamentary library. The last mentioned seminar would be organised by the Czech Parliamentary Library and IT department in November1998.

APB (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Parlaments and Behördenbibliotheken)

Marga Coing mentioned this organisation of all the Lander (state) libraries.

She also took the opportunity to explain methods for updating entries for the World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries which is on the Web Site of the German Bundestag, for the benefit of those unable to attend the pre-conference in Brussels, where she had also advised on correct procedures.

NCLS (US National Conference of State Legislatures)

Donna Scheeder reported on this Conference held annually. The last conference was in Las Vegas. The NCLS has a Web Site [http://www.ncsl.org/] and a newsletter. She will report in their newsletter on this IFLA Conference.

SARC

John Joseph reported hat there was no news of this organisation that is proposed to cover the parliamentary libraries in South Asian Countries.

Latin America

Marialyse Delano reported that a second conference would be held in the coming years.

2.1.16. Any other business

The proposal of Gaston Bernier to change the French name of the Section was adopted. The name will be "Section des Services de Bibliothèque et de Recherche Parlementaires " The correct name will be printed on the official section stationery when the present stock is used up. The Chairman apologised for the error.

2.2 Minutes of the Open Meeting, Tuesday, August 18, 1998

(85 persons, 47 countries)

Jennifer Tanfield opened the meeting at 8:40. She thanked all the translators of the various papers into Russian, French and German and then invited Nick Bannenberg, Parliamentary Librarian of the Queensland Parliament, Australia, to speak to the paper prepared by Katalin Haraszti of the Library of the Hungarian Parliament, who was unfortunately not able to be present. The paper had been published both in hard copy and on the IFLA site on the Internet.

The role of committees of members in provision of library and information services

Abstract

Almost every type of library, national, university and school, public, private or special has some form of Advisory Board or supervisory committee. This paper follows up interest at recent IFLA meetings in the role of Library Committees in relation to legislative libraries. The results of some survey work on the prevalence of Library Committees are summarised and the subject is then considered in more detail in the context of a case study of the Library Committees of the Hungarian Parliament from 1867 until 1950 and the Advisory Board established in 1996.

Nick Bannenberg had prepared a PowerPoint presentation which showed the results of Ms Haraszti's survey. The presentation was followed by lively discussion.

Questions included whether Nick Bannenberg knew what the Library Committee will be like in the new Parliament? Answer: No! Marga Coing [Germany] asked whether Members were aware that they are in control, for they act as if they hold the Librarian responsible for everything. Bosses do not really understand the role of the Librarian and hence they cannot act as intermediaries. Marga is herself not allowed to meet with the Committee. Bernard Vansteelandt [Belgium] was in full agreement with Marga Coing. He tried ten times in one year to call a meeting without success. Problems have accordingly been resolved administratively and these decisions have been reported subsequently to the Committee.

Ravinder Kumar Chadha [India] had some disagreement with the previous speakers. He felt that the Librarians are really responsible for providing the services that Members need, including especially new services that Members greatly appreciate, but could not have thought of themselves. Unless Librarians take the initiative new services will not occur, for Members will just let things go on as they are. Nick Bannenberg agreed with this. He maintained that Librarians must use whatever systems are available. They must demonstrate new ideas and deliver new services. A Committee will require the Librarian to be 'political', i.e. able to influence the members of the Committee. The Librarian must use professional skills to achieve the end.

Waafa Ali Abdel Elah [Egypt] said that they have no Library Committee, but are in the process of establishing one. She asked whether the Librarian have the right to attend meetings. Richard Paré [Canada] said that in Canada the Parliamentary Librarian has the role to advise, and is not a member, but he always attends meetings to explain and answer questions, but not to vote. Rob Johnson [Australia, Canberra] said that the Parliamentary Librarian is the secretary of the Committee. All the senior executive also attend and can be asked questions.

Kosi Kedem [Member of Parliament, Ghana] reported that in Ghana the situation is a paradox. The Librarian does not control the policies of the Library, but ultimately the Members look to the Librarian to deliver the services. Members do not go to the Committee: they go to the Librarian. The Librarian may have to tell Members that he/she does not have the requisite resources to deliver the services required. The Librarian is not the final authority. The Committee could be made important but the Library Committee is not an attractive Committee for Members of Parliament. There are more important issues on which the Member will want to put their mark, for example, a Committee discussing an energy project. It is also important to make provision for Members that attend the meeting, such as providing some food.

Albert Mzinkulu Ntunja [South Africa] said that in the South African Parliament they have a sort of advisory board that deals with all sorts of things involving the management of Parliament, such as catering. If Members do not go to those meetings catering may be disrupted! All Library matters are presented at that meeting as well. Members do not necessarily know beforehand what the issues are. The Library, therefore, lobbies Members about problems and their solutions. Thus informed about an issue the Members then provide the advice that librarians have suggested.

Oleg Kumalagov [Russia] said that a Library Council is to be set up at the suggestion of library management. The Duma had such a body before the 1917 revolution. All political factions have nominated their representatives to the Council. These people are prominent in their field of activity. They are regular visitors to the Library and they are conscious of what the Library can offer. It is hoped that these people will be able to have a positive influence on the development of the library. The Librarian will provide the agenda. The Librarian will be the main driving force.

Rob Brian [Australia, NSW] said that in his Parliament the Librarian played an important role on the Joint Library Committee of which he was the Executive Officer. He called the meetings and tried to have at least two meetings per year. He also set the agenda and provided brief documents on each item on the agenda. The papers for the meeting were distributed to the Members prior to the meeting. The meeting was scheduled to last only one hour during the lunch break on a Thursday. To attract Members to attend the Librarian provided a simple lunch of sandwiches, orange juice, tea and coffee.

Marialyse Delano [Chile] then spoke to her paper which had been published in hardcopy and on the Web.

Library of Congress of Chile: A Hands-On Modernization Experience

Abstract

The Chilean Library of Congress has recently finished the first stage of a major modernization project, redesigning services and information products, incorporating technologies on a massive scale, upgrading collections, training people, changing the organizational structure, management techniques and physical space. As a result of this major turmoil the Library today is a successful one-stop information shop, but at the same time has to deal with resistance to change. The paper describes the Library's experience, major successes and problems encountered. It will be of particular interest to those institutions rethinking their services and business planning to adapt to changes in technology, management, human resources and user demand, as well as reflecting globalization and information as a strategic resource for development.

During the discussion of the paper Ene Loddes [Estonia] asked what information services were obtained from outside and what created by the Library. Marialyse responded that it depended on what the market offered. They have a page with links to other sources of information, e.g. with Peru, which has a good web page. In reply to a further question she explained that they provided newspaper clippings on the intranet.

John Joseph [India] asked how the approval of the Member to put their paper on the Internet was obtained and Bill Robinson [United States] asked about outsourcing IT, research and the difficulty of working in two different places. Marialyse explained that they have 18 people in IT, mostly in providing services. She herself is located in Valparaiso, but other parts of the Library are in Santiago. The Research Department has 11 people. They outsource because they cannot cope with the growing demand. The 1978 Constitution, enacted by Pinochet, separated the Congress. Valparaiso is 100 miles from Santiago. Senior staff have to work in both places and commute. Every new book goes to Valparaiso and older periodicals are going back to Santiago.

Bill Robinson [CRS, US Congress] then presented his paper and this was followed by discussion.

Research and analytical services for National legislatures: A preliminary analysis

Abstract

Currently available data on legislative research and analytical services are skimpy and contradictory, largely because of incomplete definitions about what constitutes "research" in a parliamentary setting and also because of the many actors that may be engaged in the enterprise.

This paper represents a preliminary step in ascertaining more accurately the extent and location of research services operating in legislatures. It is drawn from a new survey designed to obtain broader coverage of research units that may be based outside the parliamentary library, and offers brief vignettes describing several research services to illustrate the variety of such activities and settings.

The first question was asked by Liana Qweider [Palestine] who wanted to know, since they have a lot of NGOs, whether the research service should be separate. Should they prepare research before they are asked or should they wait till they are asked by Members? Bill Robinson thought that is was good to have research capability in multiple places. However, the Legislature must have its own research staff, certainly to co-ordinate, synthesize and put it in a form that is useful to the legislative process. He assumed that Adnan Owda would agree. Anticipation of response must be focused and deal with genuine issues that come before the Legislature. To wait for the question could meant that you will not have enough time to prepare the answer.

Kosi Kedem [Ghana] asked Bill Robinson what he thought of research methodology and what sorts of services ought to be available to Parliaments. Bill replied that there is a variety of different disciplines that are valuable to the Parliament, but there are certain scientific methods of collecting and presenting the research. The research should enable Members to make informed decisions, rather than rely on guesswork. Siiri Saillajõe [Estonia] asked what the research service of the future would be like; what was needed? Bill Robinson advised at least five researchers. Impact analysis is most important but how much will it cost, who will benefit, and how will the benefits be spread are the scientific questions we have to struggle with.

Donna Scheeder [United States] asked whether the products of research be put on the Internet. Bill pointed out that some legislatures already do this. The CRS has resisted putting them on the Internet, because there are millions of people who will want to respond to your product or comment on it. However, legislative research must compress information and cannot cover everything. There is, however, a public information function. Patricio Aranda Torres [Peru] wanted to know how many researchers there were in the Congress. How many assistants? Bill Robinson explained that CRS is so large because there are so many staff available to the Members of the Congress. Each member has 18 staff and each committee has between 5 and 150 staff. CRS is non-partisan, while the other staff are partisan and want a specific outcome. That is why a large central non-partisan research unit is essential. Anything else is going to be wasteful.

Jennifer Tanfield thanked the speakers for their thought-provoking papers and the audience for their lively participation in the discussion and closed the meeting at 10:50.

64th IFLA CONFERENCE, AMSTERDAM

2.3 Minutes of the INFORMAL MEETING ; Monday 17th August

(84 people, 45 countries)

Jennifer Tanfield announced a list of topics selected from the suggestions made at the Standing Committee on the previous day. She started the discussion on the first topic, The relationship between the Library and IT, by briefly tracing the history of computerisation in the United Kingdom Parliament. The House of Commons Library was the first of the six departments of the House of Commons to start using computers, and as other departments began to gradually make use of them with no central system in place different packages and systems had been adopted. Now there is a network throughout the parliament and a Convergence Program, so any new systems or software, such as the new email system scheduled for introduction in February 1999, must comply with the overall plan. There are increasing numbers of Library staff involved in localised IT matters including training Library staff, Members and others in use of Library systems. These Library Systems Staff are separate from the central IT Section, but co-ordinate with it.

Marga Coing reported that in a similar way IT in the Bundestag had started in the library. Subsequently there had been a general program introducing new techniques to other areas but the Library had been excluded from this. Instead the Library had opted to work in conjunction with the administrative libraries of the Federal Government. When she took over control of the Library she thought that this could be adverse to the Library's interests, so she decided to change to the Bundestag systems, which also meant that the Library would no longer have control of the mainframe. Nine years later she had decided that this might have been the wrong decision, because service had declined and the IT Section had not shown any interest in learning of the special needs of the Library, which had over 100 PCs and more than a million books. As a result the Library had decided to out-source provision of new Library software based on Windows NT.

Currently the burden of keeping this new system going lies with the Library rather than the consultants and IT because they don't understand how to keep it functional. There are continuing communication problems between Berlin and Bonn which have further complicated delivery of information. Based on this and other experience she was convinced that it was best for the Library to have its own staff, especially where the system was working on-line, to maintain as much control as possible of vital services.

Nan van Zutphen said that in the Flemish parliament, the Library is the information processing/provision department. The library and all divisions involved in information processing have PCs which means that the situation is very complex, when planning Information Policy for the whole organisation. There are many partners involved and it is important to assign responsibility accordingly. There needs to be constant consultation. The role of IT is to provide the means of delivering information - good machinery, software, hardware to team with their clients, the Library. It was important for Librarians to:

• Know what information must be provided;
• Give other divisions sufficient information about plans and ideas;
• Operate in a competent manner - keep up with the latest in electronic communication.

Bill Robinson reported that the Congressional Research Service originally had a small IT staff in the Library, but as the staff in the main organisation was unresponsive to the Library's special needs it became necessary for the Library to develop its own expert staff. As a result of their knowledge these were able to put pressure on the staff of the central IT section, who realised that they needed to have good reasons for any proposed actions.

Contributions from other participants, in particular Ravi Chandha from India, where the Library largely controlled IT, and Anita Dudina from Latvia, where there had been parallel and harmonious development, provided different models, but reaction from most speakers with significant IT experience was that the Library needs a person with specialist knowledge in both the Library and IT areas who can liaise and co-ordinate with any central IT section.

Co-operation, Twinning, Development

The aim of this topic was to discuss the possibility of established libraries assisting evolving newer libraries in some practical way. The Chairman said that to an extent this was already going on, with the establishment of regional organisations for co-operation, and it was also part of the Section's Medium Term Plan. The question was whether more could be done - whether in addition to regional associations a more direct form of assistance on a one-to-one basis could be feasible. IPU and the EP have developmental funds but IFLA and the Section does not provide direct funding. Jan Keukens gave as an illustration the association his Library has with Suriname which is in line with other assistance provided to that country by the Netherlands government.

Kosi Kedem spoke about the need for co-operation between advanced libraries and struggling emerging parliamentary libraries, which he saw as crucial to both. He had raised the issue of training of parliamentary librarians at the Copenhagen IFLA Conference, and felt strongly that Parliamentary Librarianship should be a topic for training in library schools. If this was not possible the emphasis should be to have on-the-job training. He stressed the benefit for librarians from developing countries of attending these meetings, and suggested that there should be a special time set aside each year for regional associations to meet - one or two hours set aside to interact. He also stressed the importance of supplying MPs with the right information, saying that if they didn't get what they wanted they would look elsewhere.

Ellen Namhila speaking as the Chairperson of APLESA, suggested that regional meetings could be better organised at home rather than at IFLA, while Patricio Aranda pointed out that training assistance needs the agreement of our political masters. He gave examples of how Peru had assisted a number of developing countries within his government's general framework of overseas aid. Charles Brown observed the desirability of making better use of regional and international meetings by concentrating on specific themes - perhaps automation or library management, with experts in the field providing practical training and advice, so that at the end of the conference something has been learned to take back home. Daniele Kordon from the IPU explained that technical co-operation is available for libraries, not just MPs, listing some recent practical examples of assistance, but stressed the necessity for any requests to the IPU for assistance to come through the relevant Speaker or Clerk.

Other suggestions were having an internet link for all parliamentary libraries represented through IFLA; establishment on a web site of lists of best practices - how people have solved common problems in the work place, which could be offered to others; making use of the skills of recently retired practitioners from technologically advanced countries; listing in the World Directory countries having a special relationship with one another; and a final suggestion from Mary Dickerson that the Section consider establishing a "needs assessment" group to investigate and distribute a report on specific avenues of co-operation..

Jennifer Tanfield in winding up the discussion, agreed that the Dickerson suggestion might best be implemented by establishing a small group to report back to the Standing Committee next year, and indicated that further informal discussions would be held and an announcement made during the second Standing Committee meeting.

Parliamentary Intranets and Internets - languages and Public Information.

Leading the discussion, Nola Adcock said that Australia had gone about its IT development in reverse order compared with some other parliaments, which had developed an Intranet first. Originally each department had separate staff but there was now a centralised Parliamentary Information System running the network, and a small staff of IT persons in the Library looking after library services and monitoring special programs. The Internet was a Library rather than a PISO initiative. The Library had the benefit of using the 'Net for two years before MPs were given access within the House and in electorate offices. The Library is seen as the linking point to other areas like the Senate and the House, and has the responsibility for publishing the Parliamentary Handbook on-line and in print. The Library's Research Service had decided to put up the full text of its papers and briefs on the 'Net, a process later followed by other parliamentary libraries. Comment from the public has caused some degree of interference but the public benefit had outweighed these considerations, and the information available had now been extended to Resource Guides.

There was also an Intranet, with a co-ordinating body set up to make it look and feel similar in structure to the Internet site. Individual departments were still keen to go their own way, so Canberra had 5 separate Intranets. The Library is adopting a common approach and look to both Intranet and Internet so as not to confuse its clients.

Patricio Aranda Torres said that the Peruvian experience had been to use a combined team of IT personnel, librarians and users to construct the Internet Page, which has also an English version, good bandwidth, and full-text documents including the Constitution. Services offered were a digital archive of official documents from 1904 to date, the proceedings and resolutions of Committees, an on-line catalogue, newspaper extracts, reservation and return of loans, and radio recordings. Communication with MPs was largely by email, and the web site had a congressional directory with links to the Home Pages of MPs. It was possible to search the full text of Bills, who presented them, and when. Debates in the Chamber were on the site within 30 minutes of completion, and it had links with databases, government organisations and other parliaments. All of the work has been done in-house.

Donna Scheeder spoke of a list of research and reference topics divided with links to appropriate sources on the CRS Intranet. This allowed a Speech-writer to access a subject with on-line links to related quotations; a Scheduler booking travel to easily find out about up-coming holidays within and outside the USA, commemoration times, world local time zones, weather, airline schedules, while for legislative researchers there is a section of pages with links to full text rules, legislative documents, and the full text of the Congressional Record. All of these made it easier for congressional staff to quickly find information to assist them with their job. This information was confined to the Intranet for internal use of the Senate, House and CRS. Currently negotiations were going on for provision of additional databases for the benefit of all sections but copyright issues were causing delays.

Ravi Chadha mentioned that the Indian Parliament's Home Page has the usual features - databases with questions asking for feedback from the public. Queries come from people wanting information on parliamentary proceedings, and on government policy statements which are linked from the parliamentary site. As soon as the Budget is presented there is a simultaneous release on the Internet with a link from the parliament Home Page. There are also short video clips of a few interesting sessions of the parliament, for example a 50th celebratory session in 1997 commemorating Independence. The site also has links to other parliaments; IPU; CPA.

64th IFLA CONFERENCE, AMSTERDAM

2.4 Minutes of the WORKSHOP IN THE SECOND CHAMBER 19 AUGUST 1998

(83 persons, 46 countries)

2.4.1. Welcome

All participants were welcomed by Mrs. Robbers-van der Borg, Deputy Secretary General of the Second Chamber, and chairperson of the workshop. She explained that the workshop was being held in one of the standing committee meeting rooms of the Parliament: an earlier plan to meet in the old plenary hall had to be dropped because of maintenance work. Madam Speaker could not be there that morning to welcome the participants of the workshop but had indicated that she would address them at the beginning of the afternoon session.

2.4.2. The services of the Library and the Documentation Department of the Second Chamber of the States-General.

Jan Keukens explained that the Library and the Documentation Department offer their services to MP's and their staff members, the political groups and their staff members, the civil servants of the Chamber, and the members of the parliamentary press, which are all housed in the five connected buildings of the Second Chamber. Almost all staff members of Library and Documentation are professionally qualified as librarians/documentalists and do not have (academic) qualifications in specific policy fields. The databases in which the various types of documents are indexed are accessible to all internal users and to external users. The answering of questions by the library and documentation department is traditionally based on particular sorts of document. Parliamentary Documentation concerns itself with parliamentary papers, parliamentary records and parliamentary questions. The Library deals with books, reports, legislation, jurisprudence and statistics. Press and Periodical Documentation concerns itself with periodicals, newspapers and magazines, radio and television. Despite the different databases, their design is similar and the different departments use the same indexing tools (e.g. Parliamentary Thesaurus).

The services will change in the coming years. In May 1999 the first part of the Integration of Databases Project will be completed. The goal of this project is to offer to all users, within one integrated database, information on the parliamentary process, the appropriate parliamentary papers and other relevant data. For internal users, access is via the Intranet, and for external users via the Internet. The current separated databases (description of books, periodical articles, newspaper articles, parliamentary papers, parliamentary records, parliamentary questions) and the Textpool (which contains parliamentary papers in full text) will be presented with one easy to operate interface, by which the documents will be linked as much as possible with the Session process. With the exception of books, all these documents will be available in full text.

In the coming years staff members of Library and Documentation will be more aware of the need for selection. The explosion of information, e.g. available through the Internet, makes professional selection, followed by indexing even more important. Staff members from library and documentation will in the near future spend more time pre-structuring information for their users, and less in answering inquiries and delivering documents, because the system itself will take over a great deal of that. More time will be available for tailor-made products for the users. The professionalism of staff members will be used to structure the information for the user with the help of common or personal profiles. Internet is an easily available source of information for everyone but an inexperienced user will have a great deal of difficulty in finding what he or she actually needs.

The second Chamber, in contrast with most other parliaments, does not have a separate research service. Staff of the standing committee offices produce analytical surveys and provide other services for the standing committees of the Chamber. In the Dutch political system, the ministries formulate and structure the policy, which is controlled by the Chamber. Almost all bills come from the government. Private Members' bills arise only a few times a year. To support official parliamentary inquiries, specialised staff are engaged for the subject and duration of each investigation. During the last few years discussion has taken place on the idea of a research office of the Chamber. The outcome has been plans for a parliamentary research office with two staff members appointed from 1999 increasing to five in 2000.

2.4.3. The Information Services in Practice: experiences of a party staff member

Johan de Koning, policy aide of the Christian Democrat Political Group (CDA), talked about the importance to him of the Library and Documentation Department and how he used it. In the Dutch system each MP has a personal assistant. The duties that he or she performs differ enormously. Some only perform administrative duties, such as making appointments and answering phone calls, while others actually write speeches for their MP. Most of those assistants work for 3 days a week when plenary sessions are held. Besides a personal assistant for each MP, a political group also has policy aides who advise MP's on different subjects. A parliamentary research service is unknown in the Netherlands, but there are some staff members from the Standing Committees performing such duties, especially on financial matters. Of course there are a couple of think-tanks in the Netherlands, but these are pursuing government sponsored research. Although unbiased, it is not the Parliament's own research.

It is said by those trying to explain the lack of a research service that the political climate in the Netherlands is the main reason. The Dutch civil service is not based on a system of spoils but one of merit. So civil servants can hold onto their jobs regardless of the election outcome. As a result, the civil service is usually fairly forthcoming with information. And with permission of the government, which is normally granted, civil servants even give a hand in drafting alternative legislative proposals. This might sound a bit strange to some, but that is part of the Dutch model.

The latest development with regard to parliamentary research is that it has recently been decided that a small, but genuine research office will be established. In this situation policy aides undertake their own research, supported by the services offered by the Library and Documentation Department. Newspapers are an extremely important source of information for a policy aide. The Press Documentation service provides quick scans on topics on request. It includes newspaper clippings and information from the Nexis/Lexis Database. They also send current contents, indexes of several important journals and magazines from which articles can be ordered. Press Documentation has a subscription to the database of the Dutch news agency ANP. In the Library lots of standard works are available to support the work of the policy aide. Sometimes factual information, just to check if the facts are right, is needed: in other instances information and literature which can be helpful in giving more standing to the political position of the party on a certain subject is useful. Besides this there is information which is sent directly to the MP's or policy aides, and telephone calls from citizens, interest groups and lobbyists. All staff members working in the Second Chamber have access to the Internet. Policy aides are using the Internet more and more as a source of information. Nevertheless it still usually takes a lot of time to surf the web, and the information available is usually as in-depth as one might wish.

2.4.4. Press clippings; the Yellow table

Esther Meents, chief of Press and Periodical Documentation, explained that the Yellow Table, where the press documentalists meet every day, where they discuss which clippings to select for indexing and which to drop in the waste basket, will remain the central meeting place of this service, despite all the coming technological changes.

Besides indexing articles from newspapers in a database, clients are provided with information on radio and television services and retrieved information from the Internet. The staff of Press and Periodical Documentation is divided into 5 clusters, grouped around a policy field: Administration (which includes parliaments and politics); Social and Economical Affairs; Public Welfare; Infrastructure, Agricultural and Environmental Planning; and Foreign Policy.

The Governmental Information Office provides Press Documentation twice a day with clippings from over sixty national and regional newspapers and weekly news magazines. Every afternoon the press documentalists get together at the yellow table to divide the clippings according to the different policy fields. At these meetings decisions are also taken on what cluster will handle a specific subject if policy fields overlap. In that way the press documentalists not only view every article, but also keep each other informed on the most important item of each cluster. "Thus they know everything". The clippings are selected for the "attendances", specific information clients have requested to be kept informed about. Another selection is made for the briefings that are published. It is only after this selection process that the decision is made to store an article in the database. Articles of less relevance are temporarily kept in subject folders. The files are reorganised annually. Some articles are entered into the database retrospectively.

The database in which the press articles and texts of relevant radio and television programs are indexed is a common database to which the Press and Periodical Documentation and the Government Information Office contribute. They each make selections for the database and index the articles. The problem with that is that sometimes different keywords are used and different points get emphasis in the abstract. Press Documentation subscribe to Lexis/Nexis and the Dutch press Database which holds full text versions of most Dutch newspapers. These databases are a valuable aid for retrieving recent articles that are still in the process of being indexed by our own press documentalists, but they are not very useful for in-depth searches. Clients want more information than before, and they want to have it faster. In addition, the nature of the inquiries is changing. A request for "more" information these days, is most often (explicitly or implicitly) a request for selective and more specialised information that meets the needs of an individual client. The information presented must be more specific, refined exhaustive and in context.

The goal for the future is to make newspapers available in full text versions. Once this is realised (be it by scanning and word recognition technology or other methods) the possibilities of providing clients with to-the-point information will be greatly increased. Today a client is still dependant on photocopies of the information he or she seeks. In the future it will be possible to digitally compile and mail a selection of important extracts to the client, on request or at the initiative of the Press Documentation Department. One thing that does not change is the daily meeting at the yellow table. These meetings are essential to ensure a balanced content of the files and necessary to answer questions effectively.

2.4.5. The collection and information services of the Institute of East-European Law and Russian Studies in Leiden

Anne Pries explained that the Institute in Leiden is one of the leading centres for the study of the legal system of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The major responsibilities of the Institute are in the field of research, publishing, advising, teaching and library management. Research is focused mainly on the law of the successors to the USSR - principally the Russian Federation and Central Europe - and deals particularly with constitutional, criminal and economic law and legal history. The Institute was founded in 1953. During the first years, the fundamental task was making available basic information about the legal system of central and Eastern Europe by collecting legal sources. Since 1975 the Institute has published its own law journal, the Review of Central and East European Law (formerly Review of Socialist Law). Since 1958 the Institute has published a series of monographs under the title "Law in Eastern Europe". One of the major translation efforts was carried out in 1995 with the translation into Russian of several parts of the Dutch Civil Code.

Increasing contact with the international community of Eastern European scholars eventually led to the Institute hosting several international symposia on legal matters in their sphere of interest. The political changes in the USSR during the late 1980's opened the way to meaningful contacts between Soviet and Western academic lawyers. One of the themes proposed by the Russians was the codification of civil law. As the Netherlands itself was in a unique position in respect of the codification of civil law (a new Civil Code was just being completed), all concerned agreed on the logic of co-operating in this area. In 1993 this project was started and in 1995 and 1996 part I and II of the Russian Civil Code were completed and signed into law. While work in Russia was being completed, the Leiden Institute was approached by Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus to provide input to the drafting of Civil Codes in those countries.

The library is the most extensive in the West in its field. Its collection covers the whole jurisdiction of the former socialist states. It consists of primary and secondary legal materials encompassing more than 50,000 volumes and 300 law reviews, daily newspapers etc, both in the local language and English, French and German. Furthermore, the library has an extensive collection of 19th century legal materials on microfiche, and many articles, clippings and other small materials.

The library's aim is to build up a complete collection of all available legal materials from the new Russian Federation and of the former Soviet Union as well. With regard to other former Soviet Republics and the Central East European countries, the policy is more selective. But the library subscribes to the official gazettes of all the counties in question - as far as possible - to other legal sources, such as governmental publications, parliamentary records, ministerial bulletins, court decisions, general collections of laws and decrees, collections of laws in foreign languages and to the main judicial periodicals. The library has to deal with a lot of problems involving acquisition. A rather good method to overcome these problems is the establishment of an exchange agreement with an official library within the country involved, or with private connections. Inter-library exchange plays a substantial role in the acquisition of legal periodicals. A rough division of amount of periodicals according to their language groups is as follows:


1. Russian and other languages of the former Soviet Union: 40%;
2. Central European languages: 30%;
3. Western European languages: 30%.

Summary of Workshop Discussion (Morning Session of August 19 at the Hague)

Rob Johnston (Australia) asked about the relationship between information services of the 1st and 2nd Chambers. Jan Keukens said that they all worked together quite well, but the information services of the 2nd Chamber really supported the work of the others because of its greater size. (The 1st Chamber, or Senate, has only a small library. The same is true of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, which also uses the information services of the 2nd Chamber.)

Adnan Owda (Parliamentary Research Unit of the Palestinian Legislative Council) asked three questions. In answer to the first, we learned that while the 1st Chamber does not have the power of legislative initiative, it must agree to legislation or it will not be enacted. Thus, the 1st Chamber has effective veto power. The second question concerned the status of ministers in the Parliament. The response indicated that while about 80% of the ministers come from the Parliament, they must resign their seats in the legislature to serve as minister. The other ministers come from various other places in society. The third question addressed finances for the party groups. We learned that the legislature finances party groups according to their size of representation, and that the money they obtain from the legislature may be spent in a number of ways: for research aides; for personal staff for Members of the party faction; of for some combination of research and personal staff.

Marga Coing (German Bundestag) asked Anne Pries-Heijke whether her Institute had co-operative relations with related Institutes elsewhere in the world (like the Max Planck Institute in Germany), about sharing expensive library resources among related institutions and whether the Parliamentary Library of the 2nd Chamber collected the research and parliamentary papers of other legislative information services. Anne Pries-Heijke responded affirmatively to having ties with the Max Planck Institute (in both Heidelberg and Berlin), as well as to having links with related institutions in Cologne, Salzburg, Vienna, and elsewhere. The Institute is also a member of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL). She also confirmed the need to share expensive library resources among such institutions, both because the materials are often hard to obtain, and because their cost has escalated faster than book-buying budgets of most institutions. In response to the last question, Jan Keukens noted that while his library collects some research papers, it is more important that he knows where and how to get them when needed (including on the Internet). Even his present collections of parliamentary papers, which are extensive for some countries, may not be maintained because having access to them on the Internet saves storage space and ensures having the latest versions.

In the afternoon presentations were given by Bert Mulder, Information Adviser and Project Co-ordinator of the Second Chamber on the new information future in relation to the Parliament, followed by a demonstration of other relevant databases for the Section. The last part of the programme was chaired by Nick Bannenberg. There are no minutes or papers of the presentations in the afternoon session, but there is the following summary of discussions.

The afternoon session was opened by Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, the Speaker of the Second Chamber. She was very pleased to welcome the members of the section. She stressed that the Members of Parliament were rather satisfied with the way the services were organised. As the Speaker of the House she had a special right to say so, and also as a frequent user of the library, but equally importantly because she was a specialist, a librarian by profession.

Summary of Workshop Discussion
Afternoon Session of August 19 at the Hague

Marga Coing (German Bundestag) began an interesting dialogue following the presentation by Bert Mulder. She noted that for librarians and documentalists to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Information Technology (IT) staff on the difficult policy questions posed by Mr. Mulder, they needed to be on a more equal footing. Too often in the past, IT staff have not shared enough knowledge to permit the dialogue to take place. She then asked two questions: (1) What is the design of the system? Does the IT staff design the software? And (2) How do you deal with the different perspectives of Members of Parliament and librarians as to the uses of technology?

To the surprise of most of the Workshop participants, Bert Mulder noted that he was not an IT specialist himself, but a psychologist who was hired by the Dutch parliament to act as an intermediary between the IT staff and users (MPs and parliamentary staff). In response to the first question, he stated that the 2nd Chamber was compiling all its informational materials into a coherent set of files, and then building customised "front-end" access programs for easy use and manipulation of the files. He agreed that Members and staff often had different views of the uses of technology, and a large part of the IT task was to explain to Members the implications of the technology choices they make.

Gail Dunston (Victoria, Australia) asked Nick Bannenberg what software the Queensland Parliament used to operate its newspaper database. Nick replied that the software (called CONCORD) was custom-built for this application. In reply to a follow-up question from Rob Brian (New South Wales, Australia), Nick said that the CONCORD software is commercially available.

Following Donna Scheeder's presentation on the development of Electronic Briefing Books by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Sven Backlund (European Parliament) asked how many briefing books had been prepared. Donna responded that three such "books" had been developed on an experimental basis, and that more would be prepared as part of the planning process for the next Congress (the 106th Congress, to be elected in November 1998). Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia) asked how much money it takes to create such a system. Donna replied that electronic briefing books do not cost very much once the basic IT system is in place (hardware, software, telecommunications, Web page). Basically, it represents new ways of organising existing information.

In response to another question, Donna noted that CRS decided the topics for the electronic briefing books. In the experimental stage, this was based on the interest and ability of subject specialists and librarians to prepare such a product. In the future, the choice of topics will be based more on "hot topics" of interest to the Congress. Takashi Tsukamoto (Japan) asked if the electronic products were available in the district offices of the Members. Donna responded "yes" to that question, and then noted that the security of this remote access to the system was maintained through a "pass-word" system (in response to another follow-up question).

64th IFLA CONFERENCE, AMSTERDAM

2.5 Minutes of Special Meeting on Research, Sunday 16th August

Those present:
Nola Adcock (Australia), Rob Johnston (Australia), Nick Bannenberg (Queensland, Australia), Rob Brian (NSW, Australia), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium), Johannes van Zutphen (Belgium, Flemish Parliament), Florence Butale (Botswana) Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Francis Kirkwood (Canada), Mary E. Dickerson (Ontario, Canada), Richard Paré (Canada), Karel Sosna (Czech Republic), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Daniela Sraga (Croatia), Sansan Elhennawy (Egypt), Waafa Ali Abdel-Elah (Egypt), Aare Karemets (Estonia), Siiri Sillajõe (Estonia), Marju Rist (Estonia), Ene Loddes (Estonia), Sven Backlund (European Parliament), Zita Mazzario (European Parliament Brussels), Karina Puttonen (Finland), Charles Brown (Ghana), Kosi Kedem (Ghana), Eleni Mitrakou (Greece), Beata Csako Szarka (Hungary), John Joseph (India), N K Singh (India), Kumar Ravinder Chadha (India), Aurora Simandjuntak (Indonesia),Takashi Tsukamoto (Japan), Mineo Miyawaki (Japan) Anita Dudina (Latvia), Renata Blagniene (Lithuania), Todorche Lukarevski (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Jan Keukens (Netherlands), Pleasance Purser (New Zealand), Marit Kleppa (Norway), Adnan Owda (Palestine), Liana Qweider (Palestine), Patricio Aranda Torres (Peru), Wojciech Kulisiewicz (Poland), Ioana Borocan (Romania), Elisabeta Nicoara (Romania), Irina Andreeva (Russia), Oleg Kumalagov (Russia), Georgina Gadusova (Slovak Republic), Violeta Bottazzo (Slovenia), Renata Khataza Shilubana (South Africa), Albert Mzinkulu Ntunja (South Africa), Rosa Maria Grau (Spain), Fevzi Celik (Turkey), Ali Riza Cihan (Turkey), Tuncer Yilmaz (Turkey), Ishak Bozkurt (Turkey), Keith Cunninghame (United Kingdom), Jennifer Tanfield (United Kingdom), Eduard Afonin (Ukraine), Bill Robinson (USA), Debbie Rabina (USA), Donna Scheeder (USA), Tembi Mtine (Zambia).

(64 people, 37 countries)

Introduction

Jennifer Tanfield thanked Bill Robinson for organising the special meeting and for agreeing to chair the meeting. Bill Robinson explained that the meeting was not intended to be another paper-presenting occasion but an opportunity for discussion.

A. Estonian research services

Aare Kasemets started the discussion by summarising his paper on "Advantages and Disadvantages of Small Parliamentary Information and Research Services: the Estonian Experience". The text of a final version of this paper is available on the Section web site (http://www.citec.com.au/iflaparl/3kase-e.html). He began by reviewing the main role of parliamentary information and research services, which is to assist MPs in improving the quality of parliamentary work related to:

• Legislation and prognosis of regulatory impact
• Control of executive power
• Informing the general public
• Representing the parliamentary units
  at the same time contributing to the promotion of the separation of powers by minimising MPs' dependence on information sources outside the Parliament.

He explained that the Riigikogu Chancellery (Parliament of Estonia) dated from 1992 and that its information and research services had developed alongside the development of the Riigikogu. The National Library and the Centre of Information Services for MPs provide traditional library services to both the government and the Riigikogu. The Centre compiles analytical databases on politics, economy and the law, registers the official publications of the country and compiles the bibliography of legal literature and annual reports on the parliament's activity. There is a Legal Department which focuses on judicial analysis of legal acts and a Department of Economic and Social Information which collects, processes and analyses economic, financial and social information related to legislation.

He identified the advantages of a small service as:

• Instant and direct contact with MPs, committees and faction (party) advisers
• A low cost to the national budget
• An incentive to make best use of electronic and other information services from outside the parliament
• Ability to adjust working priorities to the demands of legislation
• Indispensable co-operation with other information and research unites in government, universities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and colleagues in other parliaments.
• Flexibility in being able to adapt quickly to new concepts, organisational reforms.

He saw the main disadvantages as being:

• The limited extent and volume of the services offered
• Lapsed time problems if external sources, such as databases, are not available
• Need for advisers (analysts) to educate themselves when access to relevant knowledge is not available and resulting delay
• Lengthy information gathering if law drafting standards are insufficiently developed
• Wide range of responsibilities of advisors and sometimes lack of time for in-depth analysis
• The requests of MPs and committees have to take priority over anticipatory work.

The Development Strategy has involved the users in the development of the information and research services. Plans for improving the supply of information include increasing the involvement of universities and academic associations; increasing the use of socio-economic research (eg opinion surveys) in the political decision making; the development of analytical and administrative capacity of the government agencies; the more efficient use of new technology and electronic databases; increased interaction with the civic society, in particular with NGOs. As part of new developments the Riigikogu Intranet will be linked with the Internet during 1998 and there will be emphasis on staff training. Team work and international co-operation would continue to be essential for a small service. About one third of requests require comparative data on European and other countries.

The guiding principles of the Parliamentary I&R Services are:

• All MPs have adequate access to the services
• Research services are prioritised according to their importance to the parliament
• Political neutrality is emphasised
• Methods of work have to be academic and the argument transparent
• The Focus is on points at issue and up to date research methods
• Reliability is a high priority and the MP is guaranteed confidentiality
• All interested parties will be given access to the information, research etc some time after the work has been done in response to a request
• Most of the information should be made available to the public (mainly via Internet)

In conclusion he urged greater co-operation between parliamentary information and research services to assist in coping with the ever changing information environment.

Questions included information about the number of members of the Parliament (101) and the staff of the information and research service ( 58 in total; 40 in the Centre of Information Services, 10 in the Legal Department and 8 in the Department of Economic and Social Information); how priorities are allocated; who commissions surveys and opinion polls; whether there was a central help desk (not at present) and whether a small parliament needs a research service.

B. Research and Reference Services within National Parliaments

Sven Bachland, Head of the Parliamentary Documentation Centre of the European Parliament, presented a paper given by Dick Toornstra of the European Parliament at a conference in Bucharest in June 1998.

The first points were that parliaments need a research and reference service but where these services should be located depends on each parliament. A mission statement for a research service could include five elements:

• Research work should be done exclusively and directly for all members, committees and other organs of a parliament. It is important to know who your clients are
• The work should be carried out to support members in their legislative, control and representational functions
• The work should be of high quality and be timely, objective and non-partisan
• The work should be carried out in an interdisciplinary and integrated manner,
  i.e research, analysis, documentation or reference services should work closely together as one service.
• Work should be a reaction to queries but should also anticipate parliamentary needs

The paper discusses the type of services that should be provided, the effect of new technology in broadening the source database and delivering services, and the need for increased international co-operation. Research services have to show their value to the parliament. Putting the products of research and analysis on the Internet is advocated. Research and reference services have a challenging and exciting future.

Questions and comments included possible ways of dealing with increasing demand for research services in Chile; that Australian MPs when surveyed had put the highest value on one to one services, and that some research papers were being out-sourced; that when research services had been created in European parliaments the librarians felt that they had lost out with research lawyers getting the top jobs - the answer was to work together with neither group being "on top"; that Latvia had one research structure to cover both government and parliament and the 21 party factions all try to attract the available experts; that in Palestine academics contracted to write papers were told to be non-partisan or the paper would not be accepted; that in Bulgaria under a US funded programme students were being used to undertake studies for Members; how to maintain the non-partisan stance of parliamentary research.

C. The Beneficial Interaction of Research and Reference Activities

This discussion was led by Bill Robinson and Donna Scheeder of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in Washington.

Bill Robinson explained his point of view based on 26 years of experience in CRS. This was that:

• researchers and librarians need each other
• they are both engaged in providing information to the legislature and need to co-operate to serve it efficiently
• Neither group is superior to the other: each has its own special purpose that is important to the efficient functioning of the legislature
• If there is segmentation - or combat - between the two functions it has bad results for researchers, librarians and the parliament

He pointed out that the information needs of the legislature will always outstrip available supply so every available resource must be used. Also that there is no magic dividing line between research and reference work. To illustrate a co-operative approach he took the example of proposed legislation to reform the pension system to suggest that reference workers could use their information research skills to gather information on how other countries had changed their system while the research staff could use their skills to find common patterns among approaches, assess how well these systems might work in their own country and explore other choices available. Each group of staff should undertake what their specialities suit them to do best.

The CRS research divisions could not do research without the reference skills of the Congressional Reference Divisions. The Reference Divisions answer 82% of all requests that come into CRS. The total request loads amounts to about 500,000 per year, some 2,000 requests a day at peak periods. Three quarters of the requests are needed on the same day. No research would be possible if research staff had to handle all the requests.

Another important reason for co-operation is that legislators do not and can not recognise the difference between research and reference and will put the same questions to both groups. This may tempt each group to go beyond its real comparative advantage especially when the Members tells a specific person, "I want you to do this". Constant contact is needed between the two groups to ensure that the request is allocated to the appropriate person or group.

Donna Scheeder spoke first about the changed role of the library information professional who used to preside over a physical place known as the Library where books and magazines were loaned, sources suggested and bibliographies prepared. Today users' information needs are anticipated and information research products created. Information research products and services now come in a variety of formats which include access to a library collection in both print and electronic format, tailored responses to requests and provision of documents and articles from both within the collection and outside.

CRS has a number of models to facilitate co-operation between research and library staff. These include:

• The team project model, used to develop a new electronic project, the Electronic Briefing Book. An example was the tobacco briefing book with the team
• consisting of a lawyer, economists looking at tax issues, staff who handle health related aspects and librarians who identified a variety of web sites with critical documents and information. The resulting product combined analytical pieces written by analysts and the best and most relevant sources outside CRS. A separate gain was that research staff in the team learned about information resources and librarian staff got a deeper understanding of the issue.

• The team teaching project. Congressional staffers are given information on legislative procedure in a series of seminars. These are now given by a team of analysts and information research specialists, so that staffers learn at the same time about procedure and about the relevant documents and the information contained in them.

• The issue team model. Analysts and library staff specialising in the same subject but in different organisational units meet to discuss the workload, the need for written products and new information sources. In very active subjects areas, such as health at present, the team meets daily but in less active areas only weekly. People working in the same subject area can also be brought together by an electronic listserv.

• The patron-client model. Part of the job of the librarian staff is to provide consultation on searching, current awareness services to the research staff. To increase co-operation the librarians go to the office of the analyst for certain specific hours. Perhaps the single most valuable function the library/information research staff can provide is evaluating, selecting and organising internal and external information sources and making them available electronically.

Questions included status and remuneration differences between reference professionals and analysts, (Donna Scheeder said that it took time to build trust between the two groups but this had been accelerated because of the use of electronic sources), receipt of enquiries (mostly via a central enquiry desk but some direct to individual staff) and how the decision on allocation is taken (priority is always given to Congressmen). Richard Pare of Canada mentioned the transfer of some enquiries to a "Hot Line" who use book-marked web sites. Rob Johnson of Australia spoke of the new integrated structure in Canberra with researcher and librarians on same salary scale. Positive action was still need to break down barriers and staff were encouraged to acquire new skills.

3. The role of the information co-ordinator

This paper is included for all members who were not able to attend the Amsterdam conference and the standing committee meeting where this paper was discussed. The current position is that the Web Site of the Section has been transferred from the Parliament of Queensland, Australia to the IFLANET server at the National Library of Canada. Nick Bannenberg is not available to continue as Information Co-ordinator after the Bangkok Conference.

Maintaining the Section's Web site: the role of the Information Co-ordinator

At the 1996 meeting in Beijing, the Section was required by IFLA Headquarters to appoint an Information Co-ordinator to assist the Section Executive in communication with the members of the Section and with IFLA.

It was decided that one of the most effective ways to publicise the Section and improve communication was to establish a Home Page. Nick Bannenberg was chosen by the Executive to be the first Information Co-ordinator, and asked to establish a Web site. He was able to arrange for a temporary site free of cost to the Section, and has, with considerable help from a member of his staff, provided a high quality Home Page, which offers 24 hour access to information on the Section, its Newsletter, Conference Papers, and current email addresses. Establishing and maintaining this has involved significant time and effort.

Nick gave notice in Copenhagen that he would not be available to continue this work after the 1999 Bangkok Conference, so it is necessary for us to find out who is willing and able to carry it out, and how the responsibilities might be made less demanding. There is also the question of the location of the Home Page - we need a providor prepared to offer us up to 5 Megabytes of disc space free of charge.

Recently we received an offer from IFLA to transfer our current web site to IFLANET, their main server at the National Library of Canada, and to maintain and add to the data currently on it. IFLA's reasons were as follows:

It is better to centralise all information on Sections to allow full coverage of activities;
This promotes currency of data and uniformity of presentation;
It is easier then to establish "mirror" sites in various alternative locations.

This proposal has some attractions, but there are obvious concerns about "control" of the content of our Home Page, and preserving its current features. These issues were put to the IFLANET representative, and received the following responses:

• The content is entirely up to the Section. We just mount the information for IFLA units. We don't write it. Send it to us and we'll put it up.
• As far as languages go, we don't translate, but we'll put up anything you provide. Think of us as a sort of ISP (Internet Service Provider) that provides space on a Web site, as well as some management services.
• We would like to provide a uniform approach to use of colours, fonts and backgrounds. For example, we ditched the green background on our site which you currently use some time ago, because we received many complaints about it causing illegibility.

• As regards "control" IFLANET Admin (essentially UDT staff), doesn't control what goes up. It's up to the unit in question, as well as IFLA's Publications Committee. They set the overall policy. Looking at the IFLAPARL site, I don't think there's anything there anyone would object to. The control remains yours.
• Typically, we put the information into HTML format. We do this because there is a very wide variation in the quality of the code we receive. It turns out that it's more work to correct the bad code of others than to do original coding. A pattern has been established with a majority of units wherein documents are sent to us in MS Word or WordPerfect format which we subsequently code.
• To combat the delays in gaining access to the central site at NLC/BNC we're pushing for a set of mirror sites around the world, and hope to have them all running within the next year or so.

This offer does have quite a lot to commend it, if these promises hold true.

1. There is no more concern about the site (and of changing URLs as different people take on the job of Information Co-ordinator) though there may be charges later;
2. There should be better support in the way of data backups and stability;
3. Documents can be submitted in "natural" format - no need for HTML conversion;
4. Better access is likely for everybody, wherever they are located geographically;
5. It would be possible to ask for volunteers from Standing Committee members to submit text directly in each of the five languages, with the Information Co-ordinator liaising with them about content. It has not been possible for a variety of technical reasons to establish a Russian language version of our Home Page. This should now be possible.

There are a number of other duties for the Information Co-ordinator to carry out. The position was created principally to act as a liaison between the Section and IFLANET, and the selected person needs to have ready access to, and facility with, email.

Within our Section, Nick has taken on the added responsibility for production of leaflets in five languages publicising the Section's aims and objectives. He established a new format for them, and created a new full colour logo to better identify our global outlook. Unless responsibility for producing the leaflets is delegated to another member of the Standing Committee (the Chairman and Secretary are already heavily loaded), the next Information Co-ordinator will be expected to carry on this work, and will need to have access to facilities to update and, where necessary, improve them.

4. Section Finances

This information is not available in electronic form.

5. Elections for Standing Committee

1999 Elections for the Standing Committee and Section Officers

In accordance with IFLA regulations, elections for the two Officers of IFLA Sections, the Chairman and the Secretary, take place every two years. The next Elections will be held in Bangkok in 1999.

Officers are eligible to serve two two-year terms in each post, so Jennifer Tanfield, our Chairman, is eligible for re-election. However Jennifer has already given notice that she will not be standing for re-election as she expects to retire from the House of Commons at the end of 1999. We shall therefore be electing a new Section Chairman in August 1999. There is a good deal to learn about how IFLA operates and some continuity should be arranged if possible. We had hoped that Jan Keukens, who was prepared to continue in the office of Secretary for a further two years if re-elected, would provide this continuity. BUT under the present rules he would not be eligible because by 1999 he will have completed eight years on the Standing Committee. This rule was introduced to prevent anyone from dominating a Section for a long time, but that is not the case with Jan, who has been a loyal member of the Standing Committee for seven years, but has not dominated the work of the Section. Jennifer Tanfield has asked that this rule should be considered by the IFLA Committee which is reviewing the IFLA statutes. Those present at the second Standing Committee meeting in Amsterdam signed a petition to ask that Jan Keukens should be allowed to continue as Secretary until the review of the Statutes is completed. This has been sent to IFLA Headquarters and a possible way of retaining Jan is being discussed.

Only members of the Standing Committee are eligible to stand for election as an Officer which makes nomination and election to the Standing Committee important. Each Section has a Standing Committee of not less than 5 and not more than 20 persons. Our section had a full complement of 20 Standing Committee Members following the 1997 elections but since then Hilmi Celik has resigned from the Section and the Standing Committee and Ian Matheson has ceased to be an active member. Members of the Standing Committee are elected for a term of 4 years and may be re-elected for one consecutive term of 4 years. Jennifer Tanfield, who was elected in 1995, will be leaving the Standing Committee as well as retiring as chairman. The following members of the Committee were elected in 1995 and are eligible for re-election for a further 4 year term;

Irina Andreeva; Ximena Feliu Silva; Tembi Mtine,

It is understood that Ximena Feliu will not be seeking re-election.

The Section will therefore be looking for nine new Standing Committee members in 1999 to join the following members of the Committee elected in 1997 (Marga Coing, Tuula Laaksovirta, John Joseph, Vojcieck Kuliskiewicz, Bernard Nzo Nguty, Richard Paré, Young-Hee Park)

Plus Nick Bannenberg and Rosa Maria Grau who were re-elected in 1997 for a second four year term.

If the number of nominations exceeds the number of vacant places a postal ballot is held.

Nominees for the Standing Committee are accepted on a personal and not an institutional basis. They are required to have a working knowledge of at least one IFLA working language (English, French, German, Russian and Spanish) and have a reasonable expectation of attending meetings of the Standing Committee without cost to the Federation. Under the rules meetings must be held at least once every two years but our Section holds meetings every year at the IFLA Conference.

Considerations in putting together nominations for the Standing Committee include bringing in representatives from all the regions of the world and ensuring inclusion of people willing to stand for election as Chairman and Secretary. Anyone accepting nomination as an Officer needs to fulfil certain requirements as well as being prepared to undertake tasks such as preparing and sending out two Newsletters per year, organising the Section's programme for the annual conference, looking after the funds allocated by IFLA, proposing and implementing special projects of the Section and returning various forms to IFLA Headquarters. They must plan to attend all IFLA Conferences and have access to good communications (telephone, fax and email) and to have the approval of their parliament to use these facilities on behalf of IFLA.

Suggestions for new Standing Committee members were sought in recent months and the Standing Committee has agreed that the following nine members of the Section should be nominated: Margarita Angelova (Bulgaria), Margareta Brundin (Sweden), Gaston Bernier (Quebec, Canada), Marialyse Delano (Chile), Anita Dudina (Latvia), Waafa Ali Abdel Elah (Egypt), Donna Scheeder (USA), Bernard Vansteelandt (Belgium) and June Verrier (Australia). The deadline for completed nominations to reach IFLA Headquarters is 1 March 1999.

Every IFLA Section now has an Information Co-ordinator but this person is not an elected Officer of the Section. Nick Bannenberg has been a splendid Information Co-ordinator for our Section but does not wish to continue in this role after the 1999 Conference.

6. Publications

In December 1998 a new publication of the Section has been published in the IFLA Publications series from Saur Verlag: "Parliamentary Libraries and Research Services in Central and Eastern Europe" edited by the former chairman of the Section, William H. Robinson and Raymond Gastelum. Fifteen countries are covered in this publication and three appendices are added: Key questions or issues in developing information and research services for a parliament, by William H. Robinson; Parliamentary libraries and research services of Central and Eastern Europe, by William H. Robinson; and in the last appendix, the Draft chapter outline and questionnaire.

Parliamentary libraries and research services in Central and Eastern Europe: building more effective legislatures/ed by William H. Robinson and Raymond Gastelum.- München : Sauer, 1998 (IFLA publications; 87 ISBN 3-598-212813-3)

Publication on Parliamentary Libraries and Information Services of Western Europe
You may know that Jennifer Tanfield has taken the initiative to produce an up-to-date book on parliamentary libraries and information services in Western European countries. The ECPRD has given permission for the update of its publication "Parliamentary Libraries and Information Services" which was published by the Italian Camera dei Deputati for ECPRD in 1990. Most contributions have been received already but a few are still missing. It had been expected that the Nordic countries would be covered by a separate publication following the pre-conference of last year in Stockholm. This separate publication will now not be published, so the new plan is to include the Nordic countries in the book of Western Europe. Texts should be forwarded to Jennifer Tanfield before the end of February 1999. The European Parliament has provided funding for translation so that English, French and Italian are all included.

7. Announcements

Transfer of Home Page web site

As indicated in reports of SC discussions, the Section's Home Page has been transferred from the server in Australia, where it was maintained by our information co-ordinator Nick Bannenberg, to the National Library of Canada IFLANET site. The Section and the Information Co-ordinator remain responsible for the content of the web site.

Committee on copyright and other legal matters

In October the Section received a letter form the IFLA committee on Copyright and Other Legal Matters. The committee is required to keep a watching brief on all legal materials relating to the library and information profession, especially in an international context. This includes, of course copyright, but also other legal matters such as trade barriers, customs and excise, importation restrictions, some aspects of the Blue Shields initiative, the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) and any appropriate matter. The Committee will also be looking at education and training of librarians, especially in copyright. The Section was asked if we had any plans to deal with this subject in the coming year. The Secretary of the Section wrote an answer that we do not have any specific plans for this year but that this item nevertheless is of great interest of all our members. We invite all Section member to inform the Committee on copyright and other legal matters if they have any news on these issues from national, regional or international activities. You may contact Graham P Cornish the programme director and CLM Secretariat.

IFLA office for UAP and International lending

c/o the British Library
Boston Spa, Wetherby
West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ
United Kingdom
tel: 44-1937-546255
fax 44-1937-546478

e-mail:ifla@bl.uk

Persons

On 26 November 1998 Paul Nauta, former IFLA Secretary General, suddenly passed away. Paul Nauta retired as IFLA Secretary General on October 1 1992, having held the position for five years. Paul Nauta has been active in IFLA since 1977, when he joined the standing Committee of the Section on Education and Training.

In October 1998, Leo Voogt, the Secretary General of IFLA announced that he will resign his post as of 1 January 1999. He has accepted an invitation to become the Executive Director of the Royal Association for the Book Trade in the Netherlands.

In Korea Mr Byung Suk Min has been newly appointed as Director of the National Assembly Library, succeeding Mr. Hyun Koo Lee.

Mrs Aurora Simandjuntak from the Indonesian Parliament, a long time active participant of IFLA conferences and of our Section meetings, has been elected President of APLAP (Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Asia and the Pacific) at the Conference of APLAP in October 1998 in Manila.

For those who like to keep in contact with Ian Matheson, the retired librarian of the Parliament of New Zealand, and a very popular Section member for a long period, Ian would welcome messages to his email address: ianmath@paradise.net.nz

8. IFLA 1999. The 65th IFLA Conference and Section Pre-Conference in Bangkok

Jennifer Tanfield, Chairman

The planning for Bangkok is underway and some information is given below.

The Section's final programme depends on decisions yet to be taken by IFLA and the Parliament of Thailand. I plan to visit Bangkok for two days at the beginning of January to discuss plans with the Thai Parliament and to look at the hotels. I will then, as in 1998, write to all members of the Section inviting you to the Conference and asking whether you would like me to write to your Speaker or Secretary General to ask for support for your attendance. I hope to include more details about the arrangements in that letter and to recommend one or two hotels where members of the Section may wish to stay. If anyone needs an earlier letter for the authorities in their parliament please send me an email, fax or letter telling me to whom to write (name and address) and the names of those who hope to attend the conference. I understand that the European Parliament will not be funding any participants this year (other than staff of the European Parliament) and I have not been able to find details of any other organisations who have announced grants to those wishing to obtain assistance.

We shall be holding a one-day Pre-Conference in Bangkok on Thursday 19th August, but at the moment I do not know where that will be held. Please begin to make plans to be in Bangkok from 18th to 28th August. You also need to be aware that to take advantage of the reduced cost of early booking for Bangkok you must register not later than 15 March 1999. This is earlier than in previous years and the saving is greater. You can find details about the Conference on the IFLA website. For registration information see:
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/65acc.htm#2

The Section's meetings will start with the Pre-Conference, and then for most people Friday 20th will be a free day to explore Bangkok. Our first Standing Committee will be on Saturday morning and I am planning for another special research meeting on Sunday. We shall be having an Open Meeting (on either Monday or Tuesday) at which three papers will be presented and I have asked IFLA to provide us with a room for an Informal Meeting. A one-day Workshop is also planned, but at present I am not sure where it will be held. I hope that, as in Amsterdam, our Workshop will be on a different day from other Sections' workshops to allow more opportunity to attend those meetings. I intend that either the Workshop or the Pre-Conference should be devoted to practical work on management issues. The issues to be covered could include team building, in-service training, stock selection criteria, budgeting, feedback from users, assessing library service performance, indicators to use when reporting to the parliament, statistical indicators to analysis the functioning of all or parts of the library.
Please let me know what subjects would be of value to you.

The Section's meetings will finish with our second Standing Committee meeting either late on Thursday 26th or in the morning of Friday 27th August. I hope that it will be possible to arrange a Section dinner on one of the evenings.

9. Standing Committee Members and Corresponding Members

Standing Committee Members

Chair Jennifer Tanfield Librarian House of Commons London SW1A OAA United Kingdom Phone: 44-171-219 3635 Fax: 44-171-219 4285 email: tanfieldjb@parliament.uk Nick Bannenberg (Information Coordinator) Parliamentary Librarian Queensland Parliamentary Library George & Alice Streets Brisbane 4000, Australia Phone: 61-7-3406-7280 Fax: 61-7-3210-0172 email: Nick.Bannenberg@parliament.qld.gov.au Irina Andreeva Director of Parliamentary Library Of the Russian Federation 1 Okhotny Riad str., Moscow 103009 Russia Phone: 7-095-292-3662 Fax: 7-095-292-9736 Email: andreeva@duma.gov.ru Ivi Eenmaa General Director National Library of Estonia Tonismagi 2 EE0100 Tallinn Estonia Phone: 372-6-311411 Fax: 372-6-404100 Email: Ivi.Eenmaa@nlib.ee Brit Fløistad Parliamentary Librarian Stortingsbiblioteket Stortinget N-0026 Oslo 1 Norway Phone: 47-22-31 36 90 Fax: 47-22-31 38 59 Email: brit.floistad@st.dep.telemax.no Wojciech Kulisiewicz * Director Sejm Library Ul. Wiesjka 4/6/8 PL 00-902 Warsaw Poland Tel: 22 6288545 Fax: 22 694 1778 Email: kulis@bs.sejm.gov.pl Tembi Chalabesa Mtine Chief Librarian National Assembly Library PO Box No 31299 Lusaka 10101, Zambia Phone: 260-1-292929 Fax: 260-1-292252 Email: tcmtine@zamnet.zm Richard Paré * Parliamentary Librarian Library of Parliament Ottawa K1A 0A9 Canada Tel: (613) 992 3122 Fax: (613) 996 7092 email: parer@parl.gc.ca Karel Sosna, Chief Librarian Parliamentary Library Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Snemovni 4, 118 26 Praha 1 Czech Republic Phone: 420-2-539411 Fax: 420-2-539406 email: SOSNA@psp.cz

Secretary Jan Keukens Head of Library of Second Chamber of the States General Binnenhof 1a, NL-2513 AA The Hague Netherlands Phone: 31-70-3182315 Fax: 31-70-3182307 email: jc.keukens@tk.parlement.nl William H Robinson (Retired Chair) 2904 N. Greencastle Street Arlington VA 22207-1508 USA Phone: 1-202-707-2092 Fax: 1-202-252-3166 email: wrobinson@crs.loc.gov Marga Coing * Leitern der Bibliothek Deutscher Bundestag Bundeshaus, Gorrestrasse 15 Bonn Germany Tel: 49 228 16 22312 Fax: 49 228 16 26087 Email: vorzimmer@wd2.bundestag.dbp.de Ms R M Grau Guadix Librarian Congress of Deputies Direccion de Estudios y Documentation Floridablanca s/n Madrid 28014, Spain Phone: 34-91-3906388 Fax: 34-91-3906765 email: rosa.grau@congreso.es John Joseph * Director, LARRDIS Parliamentary Library of Lok Sabha Parliament House New Delhi 110001 India Tel: 91 11 3034438 Fax: 91 11 3016495 Email: josephj@parlis.nic.in Tuula Laaksovirta * Overbibliotekarie Riksdagsbiblioteket 00102 Helsinki Finland Tel: 358 9 4321 Fax: 358 9 432 3495 email: tuula.h.laaksovirta@eduskunta.fi Bernard Nzo Nguty * Assemblée Nationale Yaonde Cameroon Tel: 237-22-1131 Fax: 237-22-0979 Ximena Feliu Silva Directora Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional Huerfano Num.1117, 2 do.piso Santiago, Chile Phone: 56-26715331 Fax: 56-26715331 email: direcbcn@congreso.cl Park Young-Hee * Planning Budget and Auditing Office National Assembly Library Yoido-Dong 1 Yeong Deung Po-Gu Seoul 150-703 Korea Tel: 82-2-788 4138 Fax:(82-2-788 4402 email: yhp@nanet.go.kr

Corresponding Members

10. Section e-mail and fax addresses

The following is an alphabetical list of colleagues who have attended recent Conferences. The information is included to assist continuing contact. Most will also appear under the country listing on the Section's Home Page. If you are able to correct or update any of these entries, please send an e-mail or fax to Jan Keukens.

Chair: Jennifer Tanfield	House of Commons Library, Westminster, UK	tanfieldjb@parliament.uk fax: 44 171 219 4285
Secretary: Jan Keukens	Library of Second Chamber The Hague, Netherlands	jc.keukens@tk.parlement.nl fax: 31-70-3182307
Information Coordinator: Nick Bannenberg