Krisztina Kardos

The Library of the Parliament started operation in 1870 as a closed special library. Its basic task was to acquire all materials that may be required by the Members of the Parliament, and to make them available for the legislative body. Till 1945 the Library operated in an organic connection with the Parliament as its maintaining authority, that also exercised inspection duties. In 1952 a declaration of the Council of Ministers opened the Library for the public. Professional inspection and the tasks of maintenance have been delegated till 1991 to the Ministry of Culture

The Library of the Parliament gradually became a special law library, one of the leading research libraries of the country. Its main collection includes political science and law, universal modern history, the diaries and written materials of the Hungarian Parliament and those of other countries, as wellas the materials of the United Nations and its specialized bodies. The secondary collection interest concerns Hungarian history, economic science, sociology and statistics.

The stock of Hungarian and foreign books can be put today at ca. 800,000, the number of currently subscribed serials at ca. 2300. The Library of the Parliament always stood at the disposal of legislation as an up-to-date source of information. The legislation mechanism in the state-socialist system and the nature of the work of MPs at that time did not, however, really require regular professional, political, legal and economic preparations. The interest in and demand for library services and their use by MPs appeared again only in the period prior to the change of the political system, in the late 80s.

The most significant stages in the development of the Library of the Parliament in the last 40 years were the following ones:

1.) In 1962 two special collections were established, that of the publications of foreign parliaments having been collected since 1878, and the collection systematizing the written materials of Hungarian parliamentary sessions.

2.) The United Nations designated the Library of the Parliament to manage its deposit collection in Hungary. Hungarian citizens have access to the English- and French-language materials of the main bodies of the UN, as well as to the materials of autonomous organizations, committees, conferences.

3.) With the establishment and gradual development of the Information and Documentation Department and of the Legal Documentation Department the Library turned in the 70s into a legal and political information centre of national importance.

Thanks to its holdings and its expert staff, the newly emerging old need - to provide documentation and information services for MPs, for the Office of the Parliament, for the parties and their specialists - did not find the institution unprepared at the end of the 80s.

With the developments in the field of computerisation having started in the second half of the 80s for today the Library of the Parliament turned into one of the most automated libraries of the country.

The Library's first home-made database was the articles' database on world politics, covering the international political, economic literature and part of sociological literature. Computerised retrieval became possible from 1988, when the Library purchased its first PCs from its own resources and from support by the Soros Foundation. It is the lawyer staff members who process the Hungarian and international law literature and provide related information. The Micro-ISIS software package of UNESCO was gradually replaced by the Textar database management system developed in Hungary.

The computerised SDI service named PRESSDOK (from 1989) makes it possible to retrieve articles from the Hungarian press on internal policy, the Parliament, the parties, foreign policy, and the events of economic and social life. HUNDOK (from 1991) on the other hand includes records of articles from the foreign press on Hungary. Services are provided on a subscription basis, as a monthly on floppy, and since 1993 can be purchased on CD-ROM as well.

This activity of the Library was rather novel in 1989. Those having initiated the production of a database assumed that - as a result of the emerging press market - there will be a demand for a new information product storing news, events, commentaries etc. and enabling their quick retrieval. Expectations have been justified: the first product of the Library's entrepreneur activity has today a firm place on the Hungarian information market. Although the incomes from the subscriptions make up just a fraction of the Library's annual budget, the floppy monthly brought a certain financial success too, in addition to the moral acknowledgment of the profession. The press databases have considerably assisted the adoption of computer culture in the Library.

A major part of computerisation was enabled by external sources (the Soros Foundation and the Press Foundation of the Hungarian Credit Bank). The entire period 1985 to 1995 was characterized by the costs of automation exceeding the dividable resources of the actual library budget, requiring the mapping and use of alternative sources.

As an organic consequence of the political and organizational changes (development of real parliamentarism, continuous work in the Parliament and its information needs, as well as the Library being returned to its former maintaining body) in the system change period an old function of the Library has been revived: assistance to the work of the Parliament by documentation and information. In the 70s and 80s MPs have regularly registered with the library, almost "ex officio", but an active use by MPs was not at all characteristic. The dual function of the Library - providing services for the public and for the Parliament - meant an increasing burden, as the Library had previously been prepared to serve only its traditional users, i.e. law students, faculty, research workers and journalists. Soon essential capacity limitations have been realized, that could be solved only by establishing a new department, and by identifying the resources for its operation.

As a consequence, in May 1991 the Department of Information Services for MPs was set up. Formerly the requests of MPs and experts had been received at various parts and departments of the Library (reference services, information and documentation department, legal department, special collections). The educational attainment and language skills of staff (usually English, but two or three other languages as well) enabled the Library to provide for its newly emerging old function. Most of the staff members have graduated as lawyers, historians, economists, librarians and/or linguists.

The requests of MPs are characterized by a variety, and a need for quick and impartial answer. Their demands are related to the new trends of parliamentary work, such as the setting up of the new legal bases of political and economic institutions, the high number of bills, or the tension of parliamentary work. Together with legislation increasingly regaining its former importance and working style, the demand was growing for the services of the Library. The staff of the Department of Information Services for MPs use the catalogues of the Library, its special collections, the Library's own and external databases in the field of law, public administration and parliaments. Some examples: they provide data on the activities of the present and former parliaments; they hold the bills and the materials of their discussions at plenary and committee sessions; they compile bibliographies for certain legal regulations and their parliamentary discussions; search for the former Hungarian and international regulation of given legal and economic issues; compile bibliographies. Another major group of services is constituted by compiling facts, bibliographies and SDI on the Hungarian and international literature of historical, political and economic subjects, as well as by providing press information services on the events and players of the internal and foreign policy, the economics and culture.

After the 1990-1994 parliamentary cycle the staff of the Department interviewed MPs by a questionnaire on their information gathering habits, the role of libraries and especially of the Library of the Parliament among their information sources, the services used and their value, as well as the demand and plans of the MPs for the next cycle.

Although one cannot draw far-reaching conclusions because of the small number of interviews (from the 80 MPs contacted only 21 took part), this survey constituted a kind of feedback for the Department. All but one of the interviewees considered high-level library-information services in legislation as significant. Many of them stressed the need for an easy and quick access to information. The internal and external databases were only in part known to the MPs interviewed, but they utilized these services indirectly, via their experts. They usually accepted positively the idea of setting up a central expert institution within the framework of the Library. The work of an organization preparing impartial analyses, studies was judged as useful. The Library's efforts to explore user needs and reactions can be considered as exemplary, especially if we take into account that the users are a very special group: the legislators.

The 1994 report of the Department states that users appreciate the activities of the Department, the services of the Library, they consider the classical work of MPs and their role in assisting legislation as important. The oral and written feedback received at the end of the 1990-1994 parliamentary cycle, the experience of everyday relations indicate that the Library of the Parliament was successful in performing its new-old task.

The "Special Task Force on the Development of Parliamentary Institutions in Eastern Europe - Frost Task Force" project, initiated by Martin Frost, a Texas member of the American House of Representatives in the summer of 1990 made a significant contribution to the information services for MPs and to the development of the Library of the Parliament as an institution in general. This congressional support had the aim to foster the development of legislation in Central and Eastern European democracies, through building out parliamentary information systems. At the start the American Congress approved 6 million USD for Poland, the Czechoslovakia of that time, and for Hungary. The programme was managed by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. The project finished in autumn 1994, but was later extended to cover Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Albania, the Ukraine and Russia. The support to Hungary was granted also to the Office of the Parliament. The project embraced three main areas: 1. the development of library services; 2. complex computerisation; 3. training and retraining programmes.

As regards library services the Library of the Parliament could cover its entire Anglo-Saxon acquisitions from this fund. The support approximated in 1992 and 1993 15% of the Library's acquisition budget.

Within the computerisation project the Library obtained computers, modern printers, copying machines, fax machines, CD-ROM players, its first CD-ROM databases. The institution's achievements in computerisation and its efforts luckily coincided with the congressional support. Today all library processes are carried out using computers, there is a Novell-based local area network in the library with ca. 40 workplaces, and with the use of modem access by remote users to the library's network is also possible.

It was for the first time, and in the foreseeable future for the last time possible in the Library's life for many staff members to take part in extension training in the United States. The two-week study tours were especially significant through their idea-forming and conscience-forming effects, as in Hungary no experience was available in the field of information services for MPs.

In Eastern Europe a variety of institutions have been set up to provide information services for MPs. In Poland e.g., in the House of Commons there is a separate research service in addition to the library; in the Baltic states new information centres have been set up within the national libraries; while in Hungary the Library of the Parliament got back its old function. In spite of the institutional differences the achievements and troubles are the same all over Eastern Europe. It is an interesting to note that in the period of European integration efforts it was not Western Europe but the United States that contributed to their solution. The European Centre of Parliamentary Research and Documentation (ECPRD) set up in 1977 could have provided an excellent institutional framework for carrying out a support project. Its library working group (that has since then been unfortunately ceased) aimed at elaborating the guidelines for developing parliamentary libraries and conducting a direct exchange of experience. In early 1995 within the European Parliament a new professional support project seems to be evolving.

Regarding its financial opportunities and situation the Library of the Parliament has got into an acute crisis by 1995. Not only the present standard of services but the basic operation conditions too have been endangered. Several financial processes simultaneously asserting themselves are responsible for this state of the art. The most significant ones are the general central restrictive measures applied in organizations financed from the state budget, the increase in public utility charges considerably affecting the general cost of operation, and the end of the American congressional support project having assisted the acquisition activities. In the future there are two realistic alternative supplementary sources for the Library. On the one hand, it could make a continuous pressure on the Parliament and its responsible decision-makers for an eventual regrouping of financial sources, for allocating additional funds. On the other hand, it could pay increased attention to the various application possibilities for tenders, foundation and other funds.

By the mid-90s the Library of the Parliament got into a situation in which it cannot raise the standard of its services, can even keep their standard with difficulties only. The further deterioration of its financial situation may endanger the basic operation of the Library. In this environment it is increasingly harder for the Library to correspond to its dual functions, i.e. to meeting the information needs of the researcher public, as well as of the MPs and the staff of the parliament.