House of Commons Commission - Twenty-first Annual Report 1998-99

Twenty-First Annual Report 1998-99

Annex A – Department of the Library

Department of the Library
Annual Report 1998-99

Purpose

The Department of the Library is responsible for the provision of research, analysis and information services for the House of Commons, and for the management of the Members' Library and the Derby Gate reading rooms. It provides its services in a timely, accurate and non-partisan manner. All work for individual Members is done on a confidential basis and in relation to their Parliamentary duties.

Services provided

Information services. A wide range of material including newspapers, Hansard, Parliamentary papers, official publications and general reference works is available for consultation. Library staff provide information from these and from a variety of on-line and external sources.

Research services. Subject specialists provide a briefing service in response to enquiries from Members across the range of their Parliamentary duties. They also prepare research papers on new legislation and on other topics of current interest. The research service is grouped into seven subject sections each of which holds specialised collections of material.

Networked information services. Access to a range of information is available electronically over the Parliamentary Intranet and links provided to Internet sites.

Book loans. The Library has a substantial loan collection of books and pamphlets and also borrows material from other libraries when necessary.

Services for the public. The House of Commons Information Office provides information for the general public about the work, history and membership of the House of Commons. The Parliamentary Education Unit provides education services for schools on behalf of both Houses of Parliament.

Documentation, processing and archiving. The information and research services are supported by documentation and information technology services and by library services such as selection, acquisition and processing of material. The Library is the House's repository for the definitive set of Parliamentary papers, Hansard and other categories of official material.

Organisation

The chart shows the Library's structure and the numbers of staff in each section or unit on 31 March 1999.

Current and future activities

The demand for almost all the Library's services continued to follow the upward trend which had re-emerged towards the end of 1997-98, although in some areas the rate of growth may have begun to slow down. This may be at least partly attributed to the Library's continuing efforts to provide information to Members, and their staff, in electronic form which can be used without direct intervention by Library staff. One task for the coming year is to develop methods of measuring levels of use of these electronic sources. The nature of the enquiries being placed confirms that Members' expectations of the service remain high. Previously observed trends, such as more complex enquiries and shortened deadlines, have not changed.

The Library participated in the survey early in 1999 of the views of Members and their staff on the services provided by the House administration (the results were reported in April). Many of the questions about the Library were the same as those in an earlier survey in 1995 and the responses showed that the Library continues to be highly regarded by its users. The findings of the survey will be examined to identify areas where changes are desirable.

Among previously identified changes confirmed by the survey is the need for users to have more specific information about the scale and scope of the Library's services. Work has started on the preparation of a statement of the standards of service which Members can expect. This will complement the existing list of categories of enquiry which the Library does not accept and contribute towards managing demand for the enquiry services.

The rapidly changing technological environment in which all information and research services operate increases the need for the Library to keep its users informed. More information about the department's services is being made available on the Intranet, while the occasional newsletter, News From the Library, is sent to all Members to tell them about new developments.

To underpin the statement of standards for its users, the Library has started to prepare quality standards for the department's major areas of activity. Four standards were completed shortly before the end of the year and a further five are in preparation. Such standards will help to ensure that the full range of services provided is of a high and consistent quality.

The training and development of the Library's staff is a high priority. In preparation for commitment to the Investors in People process, an outside consultant undertook a survey of staff opinion and submitted a report in September 1998. As part of the process of formal commitment to achieving Investors in People status, an action plan has been prepared and commitment is expected to be agreed in May 1999. A training plan for the next three years has also been prepared.

The co-ordination of work related to Parliament has continued with further stock rationalisation and development of the Library's basic parliamentary training programme, first introduced in 1997-98. This was attended by staff from other departments in both Houses as well as Library staff. In 1999-00, a new centre will be established which will draw together the Library's research and some of its reference work on Parliament in order to produce better and more easily available information for all the department's users.

The Library has worked closely with officials developing services for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies to ensure that appropriate information is available to Members of the House of Commons and to avoid unnecessary duplication between the various bodies. This has produced such tangible results as the development of an extranet linking the various bodies and the inclusion of the devolved assemblies in the POLIS system. Four staff have been seconded for varying periods to the new Scottish Parliament Information Centre and the Library assisted with the training of new staff from all three new bodies.

The House of Commons Information Office and the Parliamentary Education Unit moved to refurbished accommodation on the sixth floor of Norman Shaw North in April 1998. This enabled consequential moves within the Derby Gate Building, relieving areas where overcrowding had become acute, although only very limited space remains for further expansion. During the year, planning began for the refurbished Norman Shaw South 'bridge' accommodation which will replace the rooms currently occupied by the Library's IT Unit in Norman Shaw South.

(a)	Information services The Members' Library responds to requests from Members for reference information and acts as a link with the Library's research services; a corresponding service is provided for Members' staff in the Derby Gate reading rooms.
	Demand for the services provided both in the Members' Library in the Palace and in Derby Gate was above that in 1997-98 but still below pre-election levels. The proportion of enquiries presented in person by Members' staff using the Derby Gate reading rooms fell slightly to just over 21% of all such enquiries. This reflects two main influences. First, more work is based in constituency or party offices. Survey evidence suggests that at least 10 per cent of all enquiries from Members' staff come from constituency offices. Secondly, the Library has continued to assist such staff to use Library facilities themselves, without putting an enquiry to Library staff.
	Extensive training of Members' staff (and Members themselves) in the use of the Library's networked information services took place following the approval of a new post of IT training officer in the summer of 1998. As part of the policy of encouraging user self-help, this training will continue to be provided and enhanced. The reading rooms' guides to services and how to find material were all revised and 357 individuals undertook introductory tours of the reading rooms, compared with 341 in 1997-98. These enabled Members' staff to use more effectively the Library's user-friendly Intranet services, which have been further developed.
(b)	Research services The research staff of the Library respond, orally or in writing, to requests from individual Members and their personal staff working on their behalf for specialist subject information required in connection with Members' duties. Research staff also prepare briefing papers, available to all Members, on major topics of current interest. The specialised collections of official sources and other material related to research sections' subject areas may be consulted by Library users.
	The demands on the research service are measured in two ways. The Enquiries Database records the more substantial requests while other requests, mainly telephone calls seeking immediate briefing or advice, are not routinely recorded. Week-long surveys of demand in June-July 1998 and February 1999 indicated that around 48% of all requests dealt with by the research service were being logged on the database. This suggests that the total number of requests dealt with during 1998-99 was around 31,500.
	Research Papers, which are intended to cope pre-emptively with the need for information on current legislation and on other major issues, are now made available electronically on the Parliamentary Intranet and, since early 1998, on the Internet. This has made them more easily available to Members and constituency offices without easy access to the PDVN. In addition, several hundred "standard notes" on frequently asked questions have been prepared and are updated as the need arises. As of 31 March 1999, 31 of these were accessible on the Parliamentary Intranet; this number is expected to increase steadily.
	Research staff are also developing pages on the Intranet which provide links to other useful documents and sites, including a set of regularly updated pages dealing with Economic and Monetary Union.
	The quality, accuracy and timeliness of research responses are monitored in several ways. Research Papers on all major legislation reaching the House of Commons during 1998-99 were produced ahead of the second reading debate. Papers were also produced on a range of other issues before the House, but limited resources meant that it was impossible to cover every major issue. Feedback from Members indicated that most were satisfied with both the quality and quantity of information provided.
(c)	Networked information services The Library's Information Technology Unit is responsible for the development, management and support of the use of information technology by Library staff and of the networked services provided for use by all connected to the Parliamentary Intranet. The POLIS Unit is responsible for the creation, indexing and upkeep of the POLIS Parliamentary databases and for advising others on database operation. The Unit also uses the POLIS database to prepare the copy for the printed indexes to Hansard and to the House's sessional papers. The Library IT help-desk is staffed jointly by the two units.
	The Library has continued to expand the range of information services it makes available on the Parliamentary Intranet. At the end of the year a browser interface was provided for the POLIS current database on the Intranet. This addresses the complaint of many users, especially outside the Library, that the 'classic' POLIS is complicated to use. In addition to permitting searching from a screen similar to many search engines, it is possible to print commonly requested information such as progress on bills and debate contributions of named Members.
	POLIS continues to be the Library's principal information retrieval tool. The facilities management contract for the service expires in October 1999. A procurement exercise was initiated for a replacement contract to be negotiated by July 1999, thus allowing time for a smooth transition to the new supplier. This was the first year in which database administration was undertaken by Library staff. The projects completed included the application of a revised and modernised thesaurus and upgrading to the latest release of the underlying Basis software. Discussions have begun on changes required to accommodate the records of the devolved assemblies who will be contributing to the database. Another procurement initiated during the year is to replace the system used to manage the Library's book and periodical stock. This is due to come into operation in autumn 1999.
	For technical reasons, in the summer of 1998 the CD-ROM service on the network had to be restricted to networked computers in the Library and its reading rooms. The newspaper CD-ROMS were particularly missed and, with the assistance of the Parliamentary Communications Directorate, a new solution was purchased. By the end of the year this was being tested in the Library with promising results.
	The Library expanded the pages provided on the Parliamentary Intranet and also on the Internet for the public. EDMs have been made available on the Internet for a one-year trial period and this facility has been well used. The research service's Intranet pages were reorganised to make subject searching easier. The CD-ROM containing Dod's Parliamentary Companion was replaced with an Intranet version, making this popular source of information accessible from the PDVN.
	Other new networked services to be launched in the near future include the European Scrutiny Database for tracking legislation through the Westminster stages; and the Press Comment database which will include selected newspaper articles plus the press notices distributed electronically by the Central Office of Information for government departments.
	The IT Unit has devoted considerable effort to ensure that Library systems conform with the Parliamentary IT Strategy and IT convergence plans. Like other departments, the Unit has also been checking its computer hardware and applications to ensure Millennium compliance. Suitable precautions are being taken to ensure that the Library will continue to be fully functioning after 1 January 2000.
	In response to many requests, the IT training staff have recently extended to Members and their staff the two-hour familiarisation courses on Internet searching and the Library's networked information services and there has been a good response. These services will continue to be developed as resources allow. Plans are being developed for a room on the ground floor of Portcullis House with PCs where Members and staff can have access to the PDVN and their e-mails. There will also be Library IT training facilities to be used by Members, their staff and staff of the House.
(d)	Bookstock and loan service The rolling programme for adding pre-1985 books to the POLIS database has continued and is scheduled for completion in October 1999. The classification of the Members' Library law collection was completed and, over a weekend in February 1999, the stock of the Reference Room was rearranged in a classified sequence. Apart from making the stock easier to use, this exercise provided lessons for the wider task of classifying the Members' Library loan collection. It is planned to reorganise the stock, after off-site work on the records, in the 2000 summer recess.
	The Library's periodical collection has been reviewed by a Project Board which reported in May 1999. In addition to discarding some seldom used titles and shortening over-long retention periods, it is now intended to make fuller use of electronic sources where possible, both to provide information about contents and to deliver the text of articles.
	The Library's book and other loan services continued to be much in demand with a 14% increase in the number of loans compared with 1997-98. Of these, 80% of book loans were met from the Library's own stock. The Members' survey showed that the service remains very popular with users.
(e)	Services for the public and other external services The House of Commons Information Office provides an information service for the public - both individuals and institutions – about the House of Commons and its work, history and membership. It publishes the Weekly Information Bulletin in session - this summarises the work of both Houses – as well as an extensive series of Factsheets and other publications about the House of Commons. Most of these are available both in hard copy and on the Internet. The Office maintains a considerable amount of additional material available to the public on the Internet.
	The 4.7% fall in the number of enquiries, principally telephone calls, answered by the Information Office is largely attributable to the very high level of demand in the 1997 election period. There was a small reduction in the number of abandoned calls recorded by the telephone system but the number (45,000) remains high, reflecting the demand for the service that cannot always be met by its existing level of staff. The limited data available from the Parliamentary Communications Directorate on use of the Parliament web site suggest that there is heavy use of the web site pages created by the Information Office and that many Factsheets are downloaded by the public.
	The Parliamentary Education Unit is partly funded by the House of Lords and provides an educational service on behalf of both Houses designed to promote knowledge and understanding of Parliament among schools and colleges as well as individual students. It has maintained its well-established Autumn Visits Programme, which caters for about 8,000 year 11 to 13 students each year, and the newer programme of Wednesday visits for year 8 to 10 pupils.
	A new series of teacher training seminar days was introduced at which teachers of government and politics were kept up to date with changes taking place in Parliament through talks from, and discussions with, members of both Houses and senior officials. The unit also organised its first pupil parliaments, which take the form of an organised debate for 64 pupils who are given the opportunity to discuss the motion and debating techniques with Members of Parliament before participating in a debate which closes with a Division. Both these developments were well received by participants and will run regularly in future.
	The Education Unit continues to provide a large quantity of hard-copy resource material for schools and students. In 1998-99, this included new editions of two colour booklets on the Palace of Westminster and the Work of MPs.
	A great deal of work was done on a new educational website, Explore Parliament¹, which was publicly launched on 20 April 1999. Work also began on a new video about the work of Parliament for primary pupils, due for release in the autumn of 1999.
	The Library maintains contacts with a wide range of other parliaments and parliamentary libraries. During the year, 28 programmes of visits and longer attachments were organised for 23 individuals and five groups of visitors from a total of 23 countries.
	The Librarian has served throughout the year as chairman of the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). In that capacity, she organised the Section's 1998 annual conference in Brussels and its meetings at the main IFLA conference in Amsterdam. She is currently making arrangements for the section's meetings in Bangkok in August 1999.
	During the year, the Director of Research Services replaced the Librarian as House of Commons correspondent of the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation. Other members of staff attended ECPRD seminars on specialist subjects. Preparations have begun for an ECPRD seminar on parliamentary electronic libraries, to be hosted jointly by the House of Commons and House of Lords libraries in November 2000.
(f)	Documentation, processing and archiving The Library maintains, on behalf of the House, a definitive collection of sessional papers and other documents related to the business and proceedings of the House. Collections of the Official Report of both Houses are maintained, as well as of documents from the European Union and international organisations. An increasing number of documents are also accessible in electronic format, and can be accessed over the PDVN, for example through CD-ROMs or links to Internet sites.
	The physical condition of older volumes of the Official Report has been found to be deteriorating. Traditional conservation is very expensive and it has been concluded it is better to produce a digitised version which could be made available on the Parliamentary Intranet and perhaps beyond. A project to take this work forward was established at the end of the year, in conjunction with the House of Lords Library.

Performance measures

The table below shows the level of outputs for the last three years for the major services provided.

	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99
Reference enquiries
Members' Library	24,300	15,400	16,400
Derby Gate Library	37,200	30,800	31,500
Logged research enquiries	15,700	12,900	15,000
Research Papers	114	137	117
POLIS database: items added	107,000	96,400	108,200
Book stock: new items added	5,000	5,200	4,300
Books loaned	4,700	3,900	4,700
House of Commons Information Office
Enquiries answered	107,000	118,000	112,500
Parliamentary Education Unit
Enquiries answered	900	1,200	1,700
Publications sent out	89,700	96,000	127,400

There was a 6% increase in the number of enquiries received in the Members' Library compared with 1997-98 and a 2% increase in the Derby Gate reading rooms.

There was an increase of 16.5% in recorded research enquiries compared with 1997-98 when demand had been affected by the 1997 dissolution and general election. Deadlines were met for individual enquiries in 95% of cases, although there are variations through the year. Few serious complaints were received about missed deadlines. For enquiries without a deadline the research service aims to reply within two weeks and this was achieved in 78% of cases, a slight decrease by comparison with the previous year (80%) and attributable to the higher level of enquiries.

Jennifer Tanfield
Librarian

¹ www.explore.parliament.uk



© Parliamentary copyright 1999	Prepared 26 July 1999