27 August 2012
News from the Chair John Pullinger
To every
member of our Section who made it to Helsinki: it was great to see you. Some
people had to overcome the most extraordinary challenges just to get there but
it was a great joy that you made it.
To every member of our Section who did not make it: you missed out on something special.
Sari Pajula
and her colleagues at the Library of Parliament gave us the most wonderful
welcome and a brilliant introduction to their lovely country. This conference
note, written as I return to my desk in London, is designed simply to share in
a brief way my experiences and feelings about our days together.
We started
in the Grand Committee room of the Parliament for a training day for our
friends in the new Arab Parliamentary Libraries Network chaired by Mrs Amal
Tarhini, Parliamentary Librarian in Lebanon. With the generous support of the
Global Centre for ICT in Parliament we were once again able to offer this day
giving a practical learning experience to delegates. It was an inspiring
occasion welcomed by those who were able to attend.
See: papers presented
As our
training day ended colleagues from around the world flew in for our Section
pre-conference and tours of the impressive Parliament building. The story of
Finnish parliamentary democracy was told in a setting that touched us all
before we completed the day with a reception where we were warmly welcomed by
the Deputy Secretary General.
Our
well-attended pre-conference opened to a trumpet fanfare before a series of
presentations on Finland, its parliamentary system and the role of its library
and research services. Led by the Secretary General all the presenters,
including Ms Paivi Lipponen MP and Chair of the Committee of the Future and
members of the library and research services, served up many ideas and
approaches to parliamentary life with a relevance to countries across the
world. Our Finnish day ended with a magnificent dinner in the parliamentary
Hall of State, a great honour for our Section.
The second
day of our pre-conference was devoted to sharing innovations in our services to
Members and to the public and to comparing experiences of cooperation at the
regional level. The papers for both days are available here. We also took this opportunity to launch the new Handbook for ICT in
Parliamentary Libraries made possible through the Global Centre and many
volunteers.
See also the handbook, "Information and Communication Technologies in Parliamentary Libraries."
For some of
us there was no let up over the weekend. It is my first time as Chair of the
Section and there seemed to be endless meetings with other IFLA people. A
highlight was a meeting with IFLA Director, Stuart Hamilton on the subject of
Librarians and Democracy. IFLA is pleased to be partnering in the Beyond Access
campaign which
seeks to raise the profile of libraries as engines for development. As part of
the campaign a significant conference is being held in Washington DC on October
3rd 2012. Donna Scheeder, member of the IFLA Governing Board, and
former Section Chair will attend and report back on how we might contribute.
See also their 2012 conference site.
Other
important meetings included a discussion Sonia L’Heureux, Standing Committee
member, and I had with Ingrid Parent, IFLA President and our own, exceptionally
well attended, Section Standing Committee meetings. Minutes of the Standing
Committee meetings will follow but they will highlight a substantial level of
Section activity including our role in the forthcoming World e-Parliament
conference in Rome, the IPU/ASGP meeting in Quebec and plans for next year’s
IFLA conference in Singapore. We are also planning to apply to IFLA for funds
to undertake two projects on Section communications and evaluation of the
Section’s work.
At the main
IFLA conference we were sponsors or joint sponsors of a record six sessions: a
lively and well-attended knowledge cafe; a session on usability and
accessibility – the mobile challenge; a session on parliamentary libraries strengthening
democracy; a session on promoting global access to law; a session on the
surprising world of government libraries: trends and prospects for new user
services; and a session on libraries for the law and lawmakers. We worked
closely with the Knowledge Management Section, Law Libraries Section,
Government Libraries Section, Government Information and Official Publications
Section and IT Section and plan to build on this cooperative approach in
future. Information about all these sessions and everything else at IFLA is
availabel on the conference website.
We learned
a lot and had a lot of fun. Thank you Finland for a great event.
