E-LIBRARY@APH.GOV.AU

Paper presented at Biennial conference of the Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Australasia.

Brisbane 14 -16 July 1999.

Roslynn Membrey and Nola Adcock
Dept. of the Parliamentary Library
Canberra ACT Australia


Part I

Client services in parliamentary libraries

I wanted to call this paper "Time shifting client services" but, not only did Nola accuse me of being obscure, she also came up with a much better title. The title of our paper "e-library@aph.gov.au" manages to suggest everything we are trying to do in one simple phrase that would have meant nothing to most people in this room five years ago. It not only indicates the speed of change but it also implies the direction we are taking as the Department of the Parliamentary Library (DPL) continues to develop strategies for meeting client needs.

Parliamentary Libraries have always emphasized client service. In a paper I wrote for "Parliamentary Libraries and the future", a publication edited by Russell Cope and published in 1988 I pointed out that parliamentary librarians were

"the first cohesive group of librarians to realize the demand for instant, accurate and comprehensive information services that can be provided in a cost effective fashion. We provide very personalized services to a small group of powerful and influential users".

I went on to describe several of our unique services such as comprehensive press clipping services, anticipation of subjects of interest to clients, procedures designed to provide quick and accurate responses and most importantly a close relationship with our clients. In that paper I overlooked accessibility. In this paper I want to look more closely at accessibility from two perspectives - time and space.

We accept that because parliaments sit long hours those of us who provide services for Senators and Members must also be available for most of that time. While parliaments continue to sit late into the night many of us provide staff and resources until late in the evening. This has been such a feature of our service that many of us hadn't realized how different we were to the rest of the library world. This was brought home to me recently when I was speaking to a prospective staff member. As usual I emphasized the need for us to be available at night when Parliament was sitting. She responded in amazement that she hadn't realized that working in a parliamentary library was a "lifestyle decision". Neither had I until she spelt it out for me but I suspect that she is right.

In DPL we recently changed our opening hours as a survey of client usage revealed that very few clients actually asked us to provide information or research after 8 pm. The sitting patterns have also changed. Of 8 potential sitting nights each week there are only 3 nights when at least one chamber sits after 8 pm. While we are confident that our change of hours has saved us money and made the band of working hours more reasonable for our staff we have been forced to rethink our accessibility. We have had a few grumbles since the change. Those grumbles have focused on two issues. Firstly, our survey did not take into account the number of clients who enjoyed wandering into either the Main Library of the Ground Floor Library and browsed the shelves or helped themselves to information files, chatted with staff or photocopied articles. We hadn't included that class of user in our survey. Secondly, we have had the odd complaint from staffers who have wanted urgent service from DPL and nobody has been available to take a phone call or respond to fax or email requests after 8 pm or before 8:30 am.

Then we turn to space. DPL serves Senators and Members from all over Australia in up to five different time zones during daylight saving. Even our building is so large that most occupants acknowledge the difficulties they have in maintaining personal contact with each other on a daily basis. Within the building the Parliamentary Information Systems Office (PISO) has established an effective computer network and all five parliamentary departments have worked together to maximize use of that system to develop, collate and distribute information. In recent years the introduction of Internet/Intranet technologies has made it easier for us to collect and deliver information resources. PISO recently launched the Web Interface to ParlInfo, which we demonstrated to you yesterday and they are now in the final stages of testing the Remote and Mobile Computing (RMC) project. RMC will mean that clients with laptops will be able to access parliamentary computing facilities from anywhere in the world where they can dial into and gain access to the full resources available on the Parliamentary network.

What do these developments mean for DPL?

In recent months we have found ourselves turning our mind to what we have called the 24-hour library. In other words regardless of time and space clients will have access to our services.

Those of us who work in DPL have been pondering the impact that changes in technology and client demand have placed upon us. We have developed an Information Access Policy to replace our former Collection Development Policy. We have dedicated staff members to loading material both on the Internet/Intranet and ParlInfo and to teaching clients the best techniques for accessing electronically based information. We are looking at our paper-based collections and considering ways and means of turning them into electronic databases. We are looking at electronic media and wondering about the impact of digitization on our services. Reference staff also are finding that they are spending more time on the phone explaining search techniques for both the Internet/Intranet and ParlInfo.

The professional environment

Now let us step outside of the world of parliamentary libraries and look at the world of information as others perceive it. The Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association, recently asked ten experts to predict trends to watch which will affect library and information services. Trend No. 1 rang clear bells:

"Library users who are Web users, a growing group, expect customization, interactivity, and customer support. Approaches that are library-focused instead of user-focused will be increasingly irrelevant".

Then again we have been noting the predictions of the death of the reference librarian in several significant journals and conference papers. For example Anne Lipow, who has been at the forefront of many of the developments in the work of reference librarians, gave a paper at the Online 99 conference in Sydney. The abstract for her paper expands on the gut feel that many of us have had in recent years:

"There are many indications that reference service is in trouble: for example, as Internet use in a community goes up, a growing number of libraries are noticing a decline in circulation and use of its reference service; many library administrators believe the hype that search engines are a handy substitute for librarians; and reference librarians are finding it a daunting task to keep abreast of the new resources that appear daily on the Internet".

Lipow points out the reference librarians are endangered unless they recognize the change in client needs and demands. She demonstrates that former library users are sacrificing quality for convenience. More alarm bells must ring in the minds of parliamentary librarians. We have emphasized the quality of our services as a major justification for our continued existence. If Lipow is right our clients will turn to the Internet to find the information they need rather than wait for the library to open in the morning. Quality of our services will no longer be relevant if they are not available in an appropriate format when and where our clients need them.

Just to rub salt into our wounds I now want to turn to the Final Report of DPL's 1999 Client Services Evaluation. The consultants noted:

" [a] a clear and dominant theme from the research - and a strong point of differentiation from the 1996 research - is the influence and use of the Internet. The Net is clearly becoming an important part of the mix of suppliers and sources on which Members, Senators and their personal staff rely.

• staff (and often the Member or Senator) with high level computer skills and capacity;
  
• considerable background, often in previous professional or academic positions, with hands on self searching using the Net and other electronic sources;
  
• a high degree of independence on issues such as speech writing, preparing research papers etc.

As a direct result of these observations the consultants have recommended that DPL adopt a "value-adding role in relation to the Internet" and should:

[u]ndertake actions to strengthen the DPL's value adding role in relation to the Internet, with consideration given to:

developing an electronic 24 hour reference service centre to provide clients with seamless access to library information and expertise;

providing client training in effective searching of the Internet;

understanding of how different offices are using the Internet and how they would like the library to fit in with those different strategies (ie providing technical advice; providing an evaluation service to assess sites and sources according to their credibility and independence);

adding value to self search within Senators and Members offices by providing analysis, commentary and in depth review of issues one which some of the more basic search work has already been done within the individual office."

Now that I've set the scene I want to turn to some of the initiatives we are using to meet the challenges presented to us. These initiatives fall into 3 categories;

Client services
Changes in work procedures
Use of technology

Our clients are changing. Therefore their needs for new or different services must change. We have all noted the influx of younger, technologically literate clients. Many of them have professional backgrounds in academia, the professions, or the union movement. They have active personal networks and will often conduct their own search for information using electronic services including the Internet, email, video conferencing or professional services such as private and/or public think tanks, lobbyists, journalists and party sources. If we wish to remain relevant and useful we must compete effectively in terms of delivering the information/ research required and be cost competitive at the same time. In my opinion this trend will develop and parliamentary library services will run the risk of becoming expensive organizations with decreasing relevance for the client - despite our proximity and familiarity with the parent organization.

Changes in work procedures

Perhaps our biggest challenge is to change staff attitudes, preconceptions and work procedures as we change to meet our clients needs. In a recent article in the Journal of Government Information Joan Lippincott and Joan Cheverie sum up the challenge in the following words:

"Currently the roles of the professional librarian are often perceived as sequential - acquire the content, catalog it for access, make the content physically available, provide reference or instruction services related to the content, and preserve the content. In the future, information professionals will integrate elements such as acquiring and providing reference service for information as part of the same operation. In addition, the types of services demanded will require that information professionals have sophisticated computing skills and be familiar with software of many types. The new climate will demand that information professionals, who may be librarians or others, develop a skill set that includes capabilities to assist users to manipulate, organize relate, and filter content of various types".

This fits in well with Lipow's conclusion that we must:

"provid[e] service that recognizes our clientele's new ways of searching for information".

Instead of focussing on the content and products that we have been used to providing for the last 30 years staff and managers have to face the fact that the next 30 years are with us and, unlike the dinosaurs, we have to adapt our work procedures, or, like the dinosaurs, we will become extinct. We have to find ways to meet client needs for electronic based services which are available 24 hours a day, dependent on technology, but not geography, and which is seamless, accurate, up-to-date, easy to use and access and continues to focus on the matters of importance to our clients.

To make matters worse we have to do all of this while continuing to provide many of our traditional services for those who still require them. We also have to continue to try to develop a sense of adventure and confidence in our staff who must change their work practices despite the fact that many of them have spent many years developing techniques, expertise and subject knowledge which are highly valued by clients.

Use of technology

Within Parliament House we have clear lines of responsibility for the provision of computing services. PISO is responsible for the technical infrastructure including the basic operating system, servers and network together with staple products such as word processing, email, spreadsheets, email and the Internet. The five parliamentary departments are responsible for the PC's, printers and other peripherals required by staff and Senators and Members as well as providing the content for various databases and Internet/Intranet services. In DPL focus is placed on the library databases within ParlInfo, including our library catalogues and indexing of journal articles, electronic and print media, and our contributions to the Internet/Intranet. Our Internet site has been available for several years and many of you will know that you can access DPL publications and perhaps even use our resource guides as short cuts to important sites. However, we know that our clients expect more and we are planning changes to our current electronic services. Perhaps the biggest change is the development of our IntraNet as a dedicated client portal. I am going to leave it to Nola to give you more detail as she has been leading the work in this area.

Part 2

The 1999 Client Services Evaluation has given us an updated insight into the way our clients are using our services, as well as other sources and contacts, to meet their information and research needs. A clear and dominant theme from the survey research, and an important point of differentiation from the 1996 research, is the increasing independent use of electronic sources. The Internet is a prominent feature because clients see it as being easy to access anytime, anywhere.

Facts, detailed lists, full text documents and analyses of topical issues are all available and competing for the attention of Senators and Members. However, while convenient and timely access to this vast array of material is now the reality, trawling through search engines and trying different combinations of keywords to be met by tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of hits of doubtful relevance does have its acknowledged down side. The survey research also provided evidence that our clients want us to assist them to be more independent by providing a tailored interface to the information they need, together with some analysis of quality sites and advice about how to search effectively.

A client portal?

Portals seem to have garnered more attention than any other Internet technology over the past year. While literally meaning a door or gateway, in the information context the word portal encapsulates the idea of customised linking of internal and external resources, contacts and expertise. This can be achieved by exploiting the flexibility and familiarity of Internet browser technology using an organisation's secure intranet. Although the Parliamentary Library has a well established public Internet presence, the client service part of our intranet has yet to be developed.

In the Parliamentary Library we have a myriad of access points to services and resources. These include networked databases, the catalogue, CD-ROM services, commercial information services an increasing number of which are web based, Internet resource guides, the full text of our own publications and a major printed guide to our services and expertise. A well designed client portal should be able organise and link these resources in such a way that the interface becomes an essential information gathering tool for clients, and for staff. If successful, clients will use the portal repeatedly because it has the commonly used sites and services they need to access

The approach

What I am covering now is very much work in progress, overlayed with my own wish list. I had hoped to be able to demonstrate what we are doing but at the time of writing we are just finishing the data gathering and analysis stage. This will be followed by a report from the consultant outlining the best way to proceed.

Where do you start? Sometimes it is hard to move such a project beyond the vision stage because the possibilities are endless. We have chosen to base the framework of the portal on the information contained in our Guide to information and research services. This document is printed twice a year and features an extensive subject index to the issues covered by our information and research specialists. Like any printed document it is out of date as soon as it goes to press. In developing an electronic web version of the Guide there are a number of issues to be addressed including:

devolution of responsibility to the seven subject groups to keep their staff contact information and resource details up to date. This must be a simple, straight forward process;

a search facility to allow users to specify an issue and retrieve the relevant contacts;

production of a print version of the Guide using the up to date electronic files even though the electronic and print versions may have a different look and feel;

development of consistent publication styles or templates to allow this to happen in an efficient and coordinated way.

It is expected that solutions to these issues will be applied to other elements of our publishing including the present way in which we mark up our publications to reside on different platforms.

All of this is certainly going beyond our pool of expertise so we have engaged the services of a consulting organisation experienced in both web design and the publishing of print and electronic materials. We have also set up a working group comprising representatives from areas such as resource development, publications and each of each of the subject teams. Group and individual sessions with the consultant are now taking place.

The content

Content is critical. Unless we are able to add substantial, relevant content to the Guide framework then it will not miraculously turn into the essential working tool envisaged. There are many possible ways to extend the content and demonstrate to clients the exceptional range of expertise our information and research specialists bring to the issues they cover. The consultant has been asked to consider potential areas for development and how these should be staged. On my wish list are the following:

The resource guides on our Internet site have organised links to useful sources of information based on the issues dealt with by our seven subject groups. On our secure internal site we can develop these guides further by adding more critical and evaluative commentary about the content and use of the sites we point to, something our clients have specifically asked that we do.

Hot Issues sections can be enhanced with embedded links to special briefing notes by our analysists together with links to other relevant documents, authorities and interest groups.

The Major Issues sections and other key points from our topical research papers can be highlighted with hot links to the full text for easy reference.

Direct access to additional content from external commercial information vendors can be provided in a cost effective way. One example of this is the direct Internet access we provide to clients in Parliament House to Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO). This is a flat fee unlimited use service for access to specialised material. Long established vendors such as Dialog and Lexis/Nexis also offer the ability to customise their vast resources and present these, through a series of simple search forms, as a seamless extension your own resources.

Hot links and more detailed subject access can be established to our many general and specialised CD-ROMs.

Online point-of-use tutorials can be developed to help clients make better use of services as well as assist them to develop better searching skills.

The facility for clients to customise their view of the site and establish a personalised gateway to our services.

To be successful a project such as this must bring together technology, content and people. In focussing on what technology can do we must also ensure that the human face of the service is reinforced at all times by imbedding phone numbers, email addresses and even photographs of our specialists. Perhaps we are not to far way from being able to conduct a face to face reference interview with clients via the desktop PC.

The future

The recommendations from the Client Services Evaluation concentrate on the priorities and pressures the Parliamentary Library should address as we move into the next century. Among these is an interesting "thought exercise" from the consultants on the client of the future. This piece has been devised to challenge us to examine what we presently know about our clients evolving information and research needs and to consider how we can best respond to these already established trends.

More skilled, experienced and confident in the use of technology, more demanding of self help services that can be accessed on a 24 hour basis, more speedy, independent access to data and documents - this is what we are seeing now with some of our clients and we can expect more of in the future. Our services must continue to be relevant, active and accessible even as the mix of what we do changes. With the portal project we are aiming to provide clients with an essential electronic working tool that draws on the richness of our resources and expertise to support the work of the Parliament in a virtual world.