Andy Zelinger – the new Chair of the Standing Committee on Official Papers

I’m posting on the blog in order to say a rather belated hello, and to introduce myself as the new Chair of SCOOP.

First off, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Andrew Coburn, for the excellent work he has put into helping develop the activities of SCOOP over the past few years. In reading Andrew’s “farewell” post last month I was struck by just how much SCOOP has achieved during his tenure. For my own part I have found the Print Still Matters website and the Relegation Guides to be very useful indeed.

A bit about myself. I work as Resources and Collections Librarian in the House of Lords Library. In essence my role is to lead the collection management and development of the Library’s information resources. As you would expect of a parliamentary library, official publications (and particularly parliamentary publications) in both print and online formats are central to our collection. Along with the Commons Library we are one of the few organisations that still hold a complete set of House of Lords Papers. We were recently involved in a project to digitize this material in partnership with the National Library of Scotland and ProQuest.

I have a strong interest in official publications. However, since becoming involved in SCOOP last year I’ve realised my knowledge pales in comparison to the expertise of SCOOP colleagues, and I’m looking forward to drawing on that wealth of knowledge in order to carry out the responsibilities of Chair to the best of my ability. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you want to discuss any issues related to official publications.

Andy Zellinger, Resources and Collections Librarian, House of Lord Library

An update from TSO – autumn 2016 – “A new era in Parliamentary publishing”

From 1 April 2016, Parliament moved into a new era of producing its own documents and materials emanating from the House of Commons and House of Lords. From 1 April 2016, The Stationery Office Ltd (TSO) no longer produced House of Lords materials and only a limited range of Commons material is being produced until 1 January 2017 i.e. Commons Bills, Explanatory Notes and some Commons Select Committees.

From 1 April 2016, PDFs of parliamentary documents were made available by Parliament on the Parliament websites www.parliament.uk and/or www.data.parliament.uk . These documents do not carry ISBNs.

However TSO will continue to upload the parliamentary documents in PDF format to its online library Official Publications Online (OPO) www.officialpublicationsonline.co.uk and to continue to update the documents with the same range of ISBN numbers. The TSO Official Publications Online library collection remains in place and continues to be updated each day.  The TSO Daily and Weekly Lists include details of the PDFs uploaded to the OPO Library  www.officialpublicationsonline.co.uk  The collection does not include Bound Volumes.

For parliamentary materials published before 1 April 2016 and for Commons Bills, Explanatory Notes and some Commons Select Committees pre 1 January 2017, there is no change in supply from TSO. TSO continues to offer print format copies of these materials, including the bespoke services of sourcing and supplying parliamentary materials from its extensive archive, dating back to the 19^th century.

It must be noted that the supply of House and Command Papers and Legislation Papers from TSO in print format, is not affected by the Parliamentary changes and the supply position from TSO remains unchanged.

As Parliament moves into this new era of printing internally, TSO continues to support those sourcing parliamentary materials, past and present.

For further information please contact TSO Ltd:

Email:  Officialpubsonline@tso.co.uk   : Phone 0333 200 2429

Responsibility for the information set out in this post lies entirely with The Stationery Office Ltd.

OFFICIAL PUBLISHING – PRINT? DIGITAL? Dandy offer both!

From April 2016 Dandy have continued to publish all House of Lords Papers, Bills and Hansard, a service not offered by any other publisher.  Dandy believe print still has an important role in library collections.  Let’s consider the recent Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry) a twelve volume set published as HC 265, the Inquiry was announced in 2009 and was seven years in the making.  This report should be available in academic and public libraries in hard copy.

Dandy also believe in digital supply and the need to make official information easily accessible. Dandy offer through Public Information Online (PIO)* an excellent platform and search interface to over 100,000 parliamentary and government publications from the UK Parliament and devolved assemblies dating comprehensively from 2006/07 with the archive of certain titles going back to the 1950s.   The very latest publications are available on PIO as it is updated on an hourly basis.  Subscribers to PIO are entitled to a daily feed of information and Dandy also supply a weekly list of everything they publish.

Dandy gather together information, for example, all the pieces of evidence presented to Select Committees and provide them in a consistent consolidated pdf.  Whilst the Select Committees do have freely available public websites many are not friendly in the way they provide the evidence.  The evidence is an important part and many inquirers are more interested in the evidence than in the final report.  A recent example of this is:

Science and Technology Committee 6th Report. Evidence Check: Smart metering of electricity and gas Volume 2. Oral and Written evidence

This is available as one consolidated pdf on Public Information Online.  However, please see the Parliament website:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/smart-meters-inquiry-15-16/publications/

As you can see the Written Evidence is in 45 separate pdfs.

Additionally Dandy consolidate non parliamentary key titles from departments like Office for National Statistics (ONS) Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Ministry of Defence (MOD), Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), examples being Construction Statistics 2016, Digest of United Kingdom energy statistics 2016, Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2015, Defence Statistics, Environmental Accounts etc.  Please see all the data tables associated with Environmental Accounts:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/ukenvironmentalaccounts/2016/previous/v1/relateddata

Each data set contains multiple spreadsheets.  We provide a 440 page print copy or fully searchable pdf, please note everything we publish appears on our PIO Shop to purchase as print copies:

http://www.publicinformationonline.com/shop/

Dandy have also been working with the University of Kent, digitising their collection and making them available via the PIO database.   The archive currently includes:

• Army List 1969-2014
• Air Force List 1970-2013
• Annual Abstract of Statistics 1935-2014
• Civil Service Yearbook 1960-2015
• HMSO Annual Catalogues – 1922-1996
• Navy List 1974-2014

Additionally, Dandy have digitised all House of Lords Papers/Bills, Command Papers, PGAs going back to 1955.  Dandy are currently digitising all Lords Papers/Bills from 1901-1955 – please note these papers are unavailable anywhere else.

The University of Kent view PIO as a reliable digital repository so are now discarding material that has been digitised – please see their statement:

At Kent we have been engaged in a review of our official publications collection and have been investigating ways to improve access to these materials whilst at the same time looking to save space for materials that are relatively low use in print form.  

Working in partnership with Dandy Booksellers we have donated some of our archive of House of Commons, Lords, Command Papers and Standing Committee Debates in order that they can be scanned and made available to us electronically. These materials will be added to the Public Information Online (PIO) platform which has major implications for discoverability and storage as they will be rendered easily accessible via our resource discovery layer. 

Mindful that any digitisation work would need to meet digital preservation criteria we worked with Dandy to ensure that the digital alternatives created were of a high enough standard to allow us to reconsider our print holdings. We are delighted with the quality of the digitisation and feel that this is a great opportunity to sensitively conserve our official publications heritage and would recommend any universities similarly reviewing their print holdings to consider this approach in order that we can create a comprehensive and high quality digital resource for all.

Dandy offer both a print and digital service which is unique to the market.  For more details on the digitisation project, PIO or any of the services that Dandy offer please contact Donna Ravenhill on

Tel: +44 (0)20 7624 2993
Email: enquiries@dandybooksellers.com          * http://www.publicinformationonline.com/about

Responsibility for the information and views set out in this post lies entirely with Dandy Booksellers Ltd,  a further blog post will be put up shortly about another source for these types of publications.

 

 

Changes to Parliamentary Publishing in 2016

This year will see some fundamental changes to the way in which Parliamentary Papers are made available to the public and in light of this, we have been given permission to reproduce a statement issued by TSO on their future plans for the publication of hard copy Parliamentary Papers.

“After 31^st March 2016, TSO/Williams Lea Tag will no longer be printing the full range of papers for the House of Commons and House of Lords own use.

However, we will still be printing House of Commons Bills, Explanatory Notes and some Select Committee Reports for the House of Commons until 31^st December 2016 and at the same time continue to supply these materials in print format to our external customers.

The House of Commons Daily Hansard and Bound volumes will continue to be supplied, as now in print format, to our external customers.

After 31^st March, 2016, The House of Lords Bound Volumes will continue to be supplied in print format to our external customers.  However, there will be no supply in print format of other House of Lords materials.

The TSO online library www.officialpublicationsonline.co.uk will be offered with more flexible options to purchase download of PDFs as a means of sourcing materials no longer to be supplied in print format.

Update newsletters will shortly be released confirming the arrangements for supply of House of Lords and House of Commons materials after 31 March 2016.  The newsletters will be issued to all TSO external customers (including suppliers) and the Chairs of the various “Library Groups” we support.”

Access to the electronic editions of Parliamentary Papers will continue to be available via the various online sources, such as the Gov.Uk Official Publications portal, the Publications and Records section of  Parliament.Uk, the TSO’s own Official Publications Online (referenced above), Dandy’s Public Information Online, and ProQuest’s Parliamentary Papers website.

Steven Hartshorne, Information and Enquiry Service Officer, Bolton Library and Museum Services / Secretary of SCOOP

 

Deposited Papers in the House of Commons Library

 

It may not be immediately obvious, but the following all have something in common:

• A report inquiring into allegations that the East India company interfered in the payment of debt from the Rajah of Travancore, deposited in 1832;
• An Order in Council providing for the constitution of a legislative council for the Island of Ceylon from 1923;
• A list of British prisoners of war detained in Spain during the Spanish Civil War from 1938;
• Photographs of the atrocities committed by Mau Mau raiders in Kenya from 1952;
• Papers relating to the Hillsborough disaster (deposited in 1990); and
• The Triennial review of UK Sport and Sport England from 2015.

They are all Deposited Papers; that is, papers deposited in the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries by Ministers, the Commons Speaker or the Lord Speaker. They are usually deposited either in response to a question from a Member, or for their information. See for example this answer to a Parliamentary question on 1 July 2015 :

Prisoners: Veterans: Written question 3741   

Jim Shannon:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what support is available to former service personnel diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder who have been sentenced to prison.

Andrew Selous:

Prisoners in England are entitled to receive NHS healthcare treatments equivalent to those received by people in the community. NHS treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is provided according to clinical need and informed by best practice guidelines. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides detailed guidance (NICE Clinical Guideline 26) on treating PTSD, which NHS health professionals are expected to take into account when deciding best practice, or which treatment to provide. NICE Clinical Guideline 26 applies to prisoners and people in the community, including former service personnel. A copy of NICE Clinical Guideline 26 has been placed in the Library.

The NICE guideline mentioned then became Deposited Paper 2015-0545.

In order to deposit a document the relevant Government department responsible emails a copy to the House of Commons Library. There must be a formal commitment to deposit so that the collection is not used as a place to send any document a department thinks might want to be seen by Members (eg. press notices or circulars). The Commons Library uploads the document on to the Deposited Papers database (although it is not live at this point). It is then indexed by colleagues in the House of Lords Library, at which point it goes live and is available publicly.

The collection itself started in 1832 with the East India Company report mentioned above. The next deposit was not until 1845, but since then thousands of documents have been placed in the Library, ranging from statistical tables, research reports which were not otherwise published, consultation documents and Government promotional material to large collections of papers such as the papers relating to the Hillsborough disaster (also located in Liverpool Library and available online).

Each deposit received until 1999 was recorded in a hard copy register. They were numbered in three sequences until April 1998 (the Old Series, 1832 to 1983; the New series (1983-1994), and the Third series (1994-1998)), since when they have been numbered by calendar year. Since 2007, all deposits have been available online through a database on the Parliamentary website, and the database also provides a reference to all deposits since 1988. The database is a single collection shared by the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries, whereas previously the House of Lords Library maintained a separate parallel collection. Overall, there are close to 100,000 documents in the full sequence.

The public have ongoing access to the deposited papers collection through the online database, but the older hard copies can often also be accessed. As the House of Commons Library is private to Members of Parliament requests should be made to the Parliamentary Archives, who will contact the Library and arrange for a copy to be made available in the archives search rooms. Anything pre-1988 is harder to find, but advice can be sought from the Archives.

Although many Deposited Papers have been formally published, many of them were not. The variety and richness of the subjects covered make this an invaluable collection for practitioners in the official publications field, as well as researchers and the general public.

For further information, see the Deposited Papers pages on the Parliamentary website.

Chris Sear, Head of Customer Service, House of Commons Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digitization of the House of Lords papers 1800-1910

Available from November 2015, Proquest has partnered with the National Library of Scotland to provide this set of papers for the first time in digital format. The papers will be available via the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database on a subscription basis.

‘As the working documents of government, the House of Lords Parliamentary Papers encompass wide areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, providing evidence of committees and commissions during a time when the Lords in the United Kingdom wielded considerable power. Most importantly from a legislative perspective, this collection will include many bills which originated and were subsequently rejected by the Lords – rich indicators of the direction and interests of the Lords that have been largely lost to researchers.’

Hannah Chandler, Official Papers Librarian, Bodleian Libraries