ASSOCIATION OF PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARIANS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
(APLAP)
THE 7th BIENNIAL CONFERENCE
9-14 SEPTEMBER 2002
ANKARA, TURKEY
|
ASSOCIATION OF PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARIANS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
(APLAP) THE 7th BIENNIAL CONFERENCE
|
|
|
RESOURCES
AND lNFORMATlON NETWORK lN PARLlAMENT; THE SlNGAPORE EXPERIENCE Introduction
First
of all, I would like to give you a brief information of the Parliament of
Singapore. The Parliament is unicameral. We are now at the Tenth Parliament,
constituted by the General Election on 3 November 2001. The present Parliament
consists of 84 elected Members, one Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) and 9 Nominated
Members. The total Membership is 94 at the moment. The Library has 5 staff who
provides general library and information services. Besides attending to Members'
information need, we also serve about 20 Legislative Assistants, (who are Member'
research assistants) enquiries from other ministries officials and lawyers from
some law companies. During
the past decade, librarians, information technologists, publishers and
multimedia producers have been developing a diversity of computerised
information resources. The rapid development of information retrieval systems
and the digitised text has made Internet (or Intranet) an important search tool
in libraries or resource centres. The remarkable technology of digital network
provides easy access to the vast information databases of digital text, sound,
images and video in a rapid and cost-effective manner. As computers become more
powerful and advanced and the cost is now more affordable, the world has become
a borderless community with a huge network of information sharing. In
the Parliament of Singapore, we have also developed various information systems: (1)
Singapore Parliamentary Report System:
Basically this system was developed for the easy and speedy retrieval of the
Parliamentary verbatim reports. At present, the SPRS consists of the full text
verbatim reports from 1977 to date. It is a web-based system. Users can search
the reports and appendices based on character or keywords search. It also
provides 4 search parameters: date of parliament sitting, Member's name, subject
and section of the reports. We
are now in the process of replacing the system, which is already 10 years old,
with a completely new system. The new system will include earlier verbatim
reports from 1955 till 1976 and improved and enhanced search features will be
incorporated. (2)
Digitisation of tapes to CD format:
The Library had preserved the open reel audiotapes of Parliamentary proceedings
since 1959 to 1999 and the videotapes of the proceedings from 1986 to 2001. As
these tapes are meant, for archival purposes, we have taken advantage of
technology and converted the audiotapes to CDs and the videotapes to video
compact disc (VCD). We now have approximately 6000 CDs and VCDs in the Library.
We are now planning to create a central storage space in our computer system for
effective management and speedy retrieval. (3)
Digitisation of photographs, slides and negatives of major parliamentary events: Our
library has been considered as a central depository of photographs, slides and
negatives of significant parliamentary events, eg, Parliamentary Opening
ceremonies, moving to the new Parliament House and certain Parliamentary
conferences. We have accumulated more than 1 000 of such records. In order to
improve the recording and searching system, all these records would be digitised.
Subsequently, a central storage system will be created. Once these records are
digitised, they would become a useful resource for our parliamentary education
programme and other projects. 4.
Development of Library portal: In
order to have a one-stop library service to Members; a library portal has been
developed for Members. For Phase I, the portal will contain an electronic
Library guide, the latest library books acquired, contents list of the latest
journals received and photographs of recent Parliamentary events. Members can
access the information on the portal and email their request. Next year we shall
launch Phase II wherein we will include the library catalogue, link-ups with
some important websites or databases like Lexis-Nexis and the National Library
catalogue, and some selective landmark speeches from our CN/VCD collection. Information
on Parliament Intranet and Parliament Internet The
Parliament Intranet is a resourceful network for the Parliament staff and
Members. Besides the general information like calendar of events or Order papers,
we also have the Constitution of Singapore, Standing Orders of Parliament,
Papers/Reports presented to Parliament, Members on Sessional Committees and
Members Directory. Members can access the full text Parliamentary Debates for
debates as far back as 1977. In future, when the library portal has been fully
developed, Members can also access the portal via the Parliament Intranet. The
Parliament Internet is an open network for public to access. The website is www.gov.sg/parliament.
Information on the net including Bills (full text) recently introduced, full
text Parliamentary debates of the current year, map of the electoral boundary,
Who is my MP, Parliamentary Education programme and so on. It is useful for
researchers, students and general public. Other
Network Besides our own, we also depend a lot on the other government departmental system like Singapore Statute on line (http://statutes.agc.gov.sg) The Press release network database (http://www.gov.sg/sprinter) Singapore Statistics Network (http://www.singstat.gov.sg). The
effect of digital technology has changed our working and life style. We can feel
the digital revolution is upon us. We have to effectively utilize the technology
to efficiently organize the information and provide easy access to the system. |
|
[Home)
Send mail to library@tbmm.gov.tr with
questions or comments about this web site.
|