3-00 (September 2000) by Margaret Mitchell by Greg Baker Special Aspects Australia

Communicating Specialist Information to the Australian Parliament

 

Introduction

To keep abreast of current issues, Australia’s federal parliamentarians need timely information, analysis and advice. This is used not only within the Parliament itself, but also by Members and Senators when undertaking their electorate duties.

A large and vital part of this service is provided by the Parliamentary Library. The particular characteristics of clients and their diverse needs means the Library’s communication issues differ from those faced by other libraries. From a myriad of manual techniques the Library has increasingly moved into using electronic sources and dissemination methods, which are being enhanced and expanded regularly and will soon include a comprehensive intranet portal to Library services.

 

Issues in Communicating Specialist Knowledge

Although federal parliamentarians of all parties take part in debates related to science, technology, the environment and resources, most of their energies are directed to other specialist areas including economics, statistics, politics, law, social policy, defence and foreign affairs.

Each has its own specialized technical knowledge and vocabulary, and its own need for experts to communicate that knowledge to an audience who may well be expert in other fields. To meet this need the Library has approximately 80 information and research specialists with knowledge in seven specialist subject groups including Economics, Science, Technology, Environment, and Resources. The primary client group, and the focus of most of the energies of Library staff, are Senators, Members of Parliament and their staff. Consequently, clients cover a broad cross section of education, background and interests.

The Parliament has, for example, several parliamentarians with doctorates and several with no formal qualifications at all. And they may be economists, teachers, lawyers, journalists, scientists, surveyors or tradespeople. This variety highlights the importance of the interaction that occurs between the client and the Library staff, particularly when a request is made for specialist knowledge - there is no point in providing specialist information or an analysis to a parliamentarian if that person cannot understand what they have been given or if the specialist has not addressed exactly what is needed.

For example, a parliamentarian may ask one of their staff to locate information on a particular topic or to commission research, so the staff member telephones the Library’s Central Enquiry Point. If the request is straightforward it is answered immediately, but if it is more complex it is passed to a specialist. Thus, Library staff must be able to determine the context in which each enquirer is asking a question; that is, find out if the requested response is needed for a media interview, for background information, for a speech, or for a briefing prior to overseas travel. They also need to determine the timeframe, which can dictate the depth of analysis they will provide.

Any material, information, analysis and advice provided to clients is usually tailored specifically to suit that client; confidentiality and impartiality are integral to this process.

 

Library Staff

The Library employs over 50 research specialists, each qualified in a particular subject area. They also are skilled communicators who can provide written and oral responses of a very high standard.

There are also about 30 information specialists, all with librarian qualifications, who respond to requests for information. All have specialist skills in the information sciences and in search and retrieval methods.

The above are supported by 30 staff who are responsible for acquiring, cataloguing, indexing, and maintaining the collection, and an 8-member Information Systems team who support, maintain and develop departmental systems, and ensure electronic access is available to other resources. Library Resources

In addition to normal library services the Library offers special services designed particularly for the unique client group. These include the selective dissemination of information via an information alert service; electronic media monitoring; transcriptions of electronic media coverage; newspaper clippings and press releases; replays of significant radio and television current affairs programs throughout Parliament House; orientation sessions; and a vital-issues seminar program.

Additional resources include a wide range of data CDs - currently over sixty CDs are available on-line, including over thirty law CDs - and access to on-line news services such as Reuters and Dow Jones.

 

Anticipating Client Demand

Although much of the information and analysis is provided on demand, Library staff also try to anticipate future requests. Twice a year specialists from across the Library come together to try to forecast developments in their particular fields. This provides information for librarians to make acquisition decisions, and for information and research specialists to prepare themselves for possible future questions. The process provides the latter with topics to research, from which they write papers known in the Library as General Distribution Products (GDPs).

There are several series of GDPs:

• Research Notes are short summaries designed to provide an introduction or overview of a topic; they are no longer than two sides of a single A4 sheet.
• Current Issues Briefs are short papers designed to provide a quick response to current issues and are useful as briefing documents.
• Research Papers provide in-depth analyses of issues of interest to the Parliament, or provide essential background information.

The production of GDPs has several advantages. One is that client demands can be met more quickly and easily than is the case when a paper is commissioned. Another is that authors are as a result more familiar with such topics and are in a much better position to provide oral briefings and written research papers.

 

Where To Go From Here?

There have been two main driving forces in moving the Library to greater use and reliance on electronic sources of information and electronic means of dissemination. One has been the growing cost of Library hard copy resources, particularly those sourced from overseas, coupled with a continuing squeeze on material acquisition funds. The other has been the increasing need for clients to have access to Library resources 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from wherever they happen to be. This has led the Library to make more services available on-line.

Since the beginning of the 38th Parliament in early 1996, all GDPs plus a large amount of parliamentary information paralleling the Library’s Parliamentary Handbook, have been available through an internet site which includes many hundreds of pages of information. In addition, information from all Parliamentary departments, including Library information sources such as the catalogue, is collected into a single repository called ParlInfo.

The mobility of the client group has led to the development of a remote and mobile capability which allows parliamentarians access to the same on-line facilities that are available in their Parliament House offices. To ensure the integrity and security of the Parliamentary Computing Network, only accredited equipment can be used and strict log-on procedures have to be followed.

The Library has also developed an intranet site, a public portion of which is available to parliamentarians and all staff of the five parliamentary departments. Because the intranet is not available to the general public, it can be used to publish material which for copyright or other reasons needs to be restricted to Library clients.

 

Intranet Portal

The Library’s Intranet portal, which is the next big advance toward providing specialist information to clients, will become the future electronic gateway into the Library. However, this method of disseminating information, analysis and advice brings its own communication considerations:

• While one-on-one contact can elicit precisely the content and format required for particular client requests, the design of the portal must lead clients easily and quickly to what they need. The portal must still maintain client satisfaction, but that will be harder to gauge without direct contact.
• The mixed profile of Library clients still exists so the portal has to be all things to all people.
• Those new to Library services must be guided through the site without excluding experienced users from quicker routes to the information they require.

Facilities will be available for placing on-line requests, which will be emailed to the appropriate research or information specialists.

 

Conclusion

Although the basic issues confronting the Parliamentary Library in communicating specialist information have not greatly changed with the move to more self-help access, Library staff now need to anticipate the client’s searching methods as much as consider the client’s information needs.  

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