LIPA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION

Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

º

1605

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.))

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin (Lauzon, Lib.))

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

Mr. Richard Paré (Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament)

º

1610

º

1615

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

Mr. Norman Doyle (St. John's East, CPC)

Ms. Lynn Brodie (Director, Collections Division, Library of Parliament)

º

1620

Mr. Norman Doyle

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

º

1625

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

º

1630

The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin)

Mr. Richard Paré

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

Mr. Claude Duplain (Portneuf, Lib.)

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

º

1635

Mr. Claude Duplain

Mr. Richard Paré

Mr. Claude Duplain

Ms. Lynn Brodie

Mr. Claude Duplain

Ms. Lynn Brodie

Mr. Claude Duplain

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

Hon. Roger Gallaway (Sarnia—Lambton, Lib.)

Mr. Richard Paré

Hon. Roger Gallaway

The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky)

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CANADA

Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament

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NUMBER 002

l

3rd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

º  (1605)  

[English]

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)): Order, please.

    We are very fortunate to have quite a delegation from the library, but before we go ahead with our scheduled program, I'm going to ask the Honourable Yves Morin to make a statement.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin (Lauzon, Lib.)): Thank you.

    I think I'm the only member of the previous committee, which was chaired by Carolyn Bennett. Carolyn and I were involved with Jacques Saada, in his role as Minister for Democratic Reform, with regard to the role the Library of Parliament and our committee should play in this. I was approached by Jacques. There are changes, as you know, and there are documents we've sent concerning the library. For example, the committees will be receiving bills earlier, parliamentary committees will be conducting specific studies, not unlike royal commissions and so forth, and there will be more consultation by electronic means. So there are two avenues for committees: the committees might hire more consultants or have the Library of Parliament play a greater role. These two avenues are being considered.

    The other point is that with the democratic reform, parliamentarians will be given specific responsibilities. They will tend to specialize in certain areas. In this new role, of course, they will require more information, which would be individualized, specialized, and continuous.

    So these two new roles, both for committees and parliamentarians, will increase the work and change the role of the Library of Parliament. If this goes through--it is still in the planning stage--it will change the role the Library of Parliament plays.

    Jacques Saada--I saw him this morning--wants to meet our committee at the next meeting and discuss these various issues. I said I would speak to the committee. If you agree with this, the next meeting could be held with Jacques Saada on that specific issue.

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Thank you very much.

    It's quite obvious there's going to be a greater demand on the resources we have within the library complex. I'm not going to make any further comments, but will leave it in the hands of Monsieur Paré to carefully examine what is being considered, so you have something to think about. However, we will have to wait until Mr. Saada comes here. We'll thrash it out and get further clarification as to the direction this committee will have to take in the months ahead. Mr. Saada cannot meet with this committee next week. Therefore, we'll have to postpone his visit to the period right after Easter week, if the House is not dissolved and we're still in session.

    Thank you very much for coming. I'm going to give you at least ten minutes, Mr. Paré, to make your presentation. After you make yours, if there's anybody else before us who wishes to contribute additional information to the presentation being made, please let me know, and we'll give you a few more minutes.

    Go ahead.

    Mr. Richard Paré (Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament): Thank you to the two co-chairs for this introduction.

    I have prepared a few notes, which won't take ten minutes to present. They are very short notes on the budget for 2004-2005, which, I understood, was the topic of the meeting of today.

    The main estimates for the library for 2004-2005 amount to $30,438,000, compared to $27,673,000 for 2003-2004, which represents an increase of $2,765,000, about 10%. The library budget as a whole represents 6.75% of the parliamentary global budget envelope, including the Senate, the House, and the library.

    In the increase of this year's budget there's an amount of 5.5%, $1,725,000, for non-discretionary expenditures, which was requested to cover salary increases brought about by the signing of new agreements with the unionized staff in 2002-2003. Also, part of it was for the increase of the executive, the principals, and the analysts, some of the librarians, the guides, and the students. This portion represents $957,000. There's also an adjustment for the employee benefit plans, which represent $568,000, of which a 1.5% increase is due to a new rate for these statutory items.

    On the services to parliamentarians, to ensure that the library continues to provide comprehensive, reliable, accurate, confidential, and non-partisan research and analysis, additional expertise is required to create and maintain information-based committee websites to be consulted by parliamentarians, as recommended after the pilot project the Joint Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities did in 2002-2003, to which Senator Morin has referred in his short statement. So we have identified $325,000, and it's in the budget.

    Also, additional expertise is required to support the committee review of estimates, as recommended by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We have identified $175,000 for this.

    To ensure that the library collections continue to meet increasing expectations on the part of parliamentarians for access to electronic material, an increase of $175,000 has been identified. This amount, of course, includes the increasing cost for licences.

    On service to the public, to establish an easily accessible and permanent Parliament of Canada Information Centre in the 125 Sparks Street main branch--we have a service there where the public can come and consult the database on Parliament and also have documentation--we have identified a need for $30,000 to staff this information centre. We have been able to do that with students over the last year and a half, but we would like to maintain more permanent staff.

º  (1610)  

    On infrastructure services, new expertise is required to develop and implement a continuous learning program at the library and to increase the training and development budget currently available, as strongly recommended by this committee last year. We have identified $195,000 for this program.

    Also, additional expertise is required to continue the development and implementation of a security program, which would be in accordance with the similar programs already in place with the Senate and the House. We didn't have this, so we need to have a security program in the library. This is considered a major component in the overall business continuity plan, and we have identified $75,000 for that.

    We also need new resources to allow the library to set up an environment program and initiative and to develop and implement measures that will lead to the provision of a greener work environment for all its employees. This is also to go with a similar program in the House and the Senate. We have identified $75,000 for the environment program.

    Additional expertise is needed in human resources for services such as staffing and compensation. We have required $130,000 to improve the service of human resources, keeping in mind that the human resource is the staff, involving the main portion of what we spend: close to 75% of the whole budget is for salaries.

    Additional resources are also required covering the years 1997-2005 for overhead costs, and we have identified $60,000.

    I want to add a word on program review. To maximize benefits from the library operations, we proceed on a regular basis with punctual review of specific activities. This year we have reviewed our indexing operations related to Senate evidence and committee reports. After serious consideration, it has been decided to discontinue this service. We have informed the Senate accordingly. With the increased number of pages published, we are unable to keep the service relevant. In fact, we currently have a seven-year backlog in issues to index. Recent demand for substantial indexes for important committee reports have been completed with success by outsourcing the indexing.

    Another area we have looked at is the library branches. In addition to a small branch located in the Centre Block, 135 North, during the renovation of the main library, we also operate branches in the Confederation Building and the Wellington Building. The reason for the operation of such a branch in a building was the occupancy by parliamentarians. Since the members have vacated the Wellington Building, and in order to rationalize our operations, we will transform the Wellington branch into a reading room, like the one we have in the Justice Building and the one we have in the Senate. The librarian attached half-time to the Wellington branch will work now at the main branch at 125 Sparks Street.

    So, Mr. Co-Chair, that completes my introductory notes, but we will be pleased to answer questions. You have Mr. Bonnaventure, the director of human resources, Madam Brydon, the director of service to the public, Mr. Finsten, the associate parliamentary librarian responsible for information and research, Madam Brodie, the director responsible for information resource management, collections, and electronic means, and Mr. Guimont, the director of planning. Unfortunately, we don't have the director of finance today. We'll try to give you the answers.

º  (1615)  

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Thanks for your presentation.

    Is there anyone on the panel who would like to contribute new or further information to the presentation? If not, we'll expect you to respond to some of the questions presented to you.

    We'll start with Mr. Doyle.

    Mr. Norman Doyle (St. John's East, CPC): I don't have many questions. It's my first meeting. I'm just groping my way along, you might say.

    But maybe you could be a little bit more clear on what you mean by providing collections to Parliament. What does that involve, specifically? I wasn't really clear. I think you moved over that one fairly quickly. I was just wondering if you could go back again and maybe give us a little rundown on what you mean by providing collections to Parliament and what it involves.

    Ms. Lynn Brodie (Director, Collections Division, Library of Parliament): Thank you.

    The provision of collections includes print collections. As most people are aware, most libraries still have a large number of books that they lend out, which we also use to consult in order to answer questions and assist in the research services that we provide to parliamentarians. But we also put a large number of electronic documents on Intraparl, and one of the most-used services on Intraparl happens to be our media monitoring service, Parlmedia.

    One of the requests of the previous co-chairs of this committee, in fact of a number of the members of this committee, was that we increase the amount of international coverage from news sources. This is something we started about a month and a half ago. We've acquired the London Times, the New YorkTimes, and a number of other newspapers. As Mr. Paré mentioned, the cost of acquiring those licences to put them on the parliamentary site is what we requested the additional $175,000 for.

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Norman Doyle: Okay.

    Mr. Richard Paré: If I may just add a little, the library, according to the act of Parliament, is required to conserve the books, paintings, and arts of Parliament. So we have the mandate to have the collections of the books and so on for Parliament.

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Monsieur Morin.

[Translation]

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin):

    Mr. Paré, I have two questions for you. The first one concerns the Performance Report. I do not know if we are to study this document this afternoon or not, but I was surprised to see that the number of requests for reference information from parliamentary clients was declining; we see a drop in the number of reference requests. I do not know how you explain that. However, I did hear that there was a 3 per cent increase in the research requests. That is quite substantial; reference was made to a 16 per cent increase, and so on.

    I will let you answer that question and I would have a second, more general one afterwards.

    Mr. Richard Paré: The decline in the number of reference questions goes back a few years. This occurred progressively. The main reason is that many of these questions that were addressed to us were questions of fact. Now, members' or senators' assistants answer them directly with the help of the Internet. They answer those questions and so the number of factual questions has decreased enormously.

    The number of substantive questions—

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Could you explain the difference between the two? What is a factual question and what is a substantive question?

    Mr. Richard Paré: A question of fact is, for instance, when someone asks you for the name of a member in England. That is factual: we obtain the information and we give it to you.

    A more substantive question would require that we look through several documents for information on a subject, i.e., this refers to research that takes some time. Often, it is the time required that determines the nature of the question. So, we divide questions into those two categories.

    There has been a smaller drop in the number of substantive questions, but they have also declined a little. One of the main reasons is that we have developed instruments such as PARLMEDIA, for instance, and the PARLCAT catalogue to which we add documents with electronic links, etc. People find the documents directly and so they do not have to call to obtain the document since they have it. PARLMEDIA is one example of a tool that gathers references to electronic media, and it is very useful for all parliamentarians. I think it is one of the most used databases on the Hill. That gives you some idea.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): If I look at your Performance Report... You say that there has been a decline in both categories. What do you mean when you refer to a 21 per cent increase in work as compared to the average... Is this work that is done for committees or at the request of parliamentarians? I am on page 7 of the French version of your document.

    Mr. Richard Paré: Thank you.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): I do not understand clearly what has been decreasing and what has been increasing. You are saying that the number of factual questions has been declining, as well as the substantive questions, and I see that—

    Mr. Richard Paré: Insofar as research work is concerned, the type of work that has been increasing involves briefing notes, a type of document that we are now being asked for rather than more elaborate documents. That is the current trend.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Do you prepare those on request?

    Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, on request.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Do you consider those substantive questions or factual questions?

    Mr. Richard Paré: Research is always substantive. It is mostly reference questions that involve questions of fact.

º  (1625)  

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): But when a member or a senator makes a request he does not specify whether he is asking for research to be done; he simply makes a request.

    Let us forget these categories that we are getting lost in. Has the total number of requests from parliamentarians increased or decreased?

    Mr. Richard Paré: There has been a decrease, the number of reference questions has declined.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): I am talking about the total number of requests, whether requests for briefing notes or other things. The total number of requests from parliamentarians has declined.

    Mr. Richard Paré: It has declined.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): However, I understand that the work related to committees is on the increase.

    There is a budget increase, but have the resources allocated to meeting the requests from parliamentarians diminished?

    Mr. Richard Paré: The resources have, rather, been redistributed, because we still have to do research in electronic databases in order to allow parliamentarians to find information. I referred to the tools we are developing; in fact, in Quebec, we would say that we are shooting ourselves in the foot—you know the expression—because we are preparing tools that allow the users to find information more easily. So they are asking us fewer direct questions. In fact, that is one of the main reasons why...

    There is another factor, if you will allow me to add something. In our survey of parliamentarians last year we discovered that parliamentarians do not have a good knowledge of all of the services offered by the Library. Having noted that, we decided that we would take steps to try to acquaint people with our services and make them better known, which is something we are going to do more of this year.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): We should also say that that survey revealed a very high level of satisfaction with regard to the services provided by the Library.

    I would like to move on to another topic. This will not surprise you; it is maintaining the competence of your staff. You know that this is a topic that is dear to my heart. Your staff is highly qualified; they are professionals, scientists, people who really are at the academic level, that is to say people who could be teaching in universities or working in pharmaceutical research companies, for instance. That is their level of competence. Now according to the information I have obtained, people say that at that level the percentage of budgets allocated to ongoing training of scientific and professional staff—I am not talking about clerical staff, here—should be between 5 and 10% of the budget for human resources. So if 75% of your budget is allocated to human resources, which means about $22 million, say $20 million, you should really allocate between one and $2 million to maintaining the competence of your professional and scientific staff.

    Does this correspond more or less to what you do earmark for training?

    Mr. Richard Paré: No, it does not. However, we are making efforts to improve the situation. We have followed up on a request that you made at the last meeting, which gives you part of the answer. We spend approximately $100,000 for the year. This year we earmarked $195,000 to develop what we call the learning program. With that addition, we are heading in the right direction, but we are still quite far from the million dollars you suggest we should be spending, which would be comparable to what is spent in universities.

    I might say that there is a slight difference, in the sense that in universities people really specialize in one area. For our part, we ask our specialists to develop their knowledge in several areas.

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): All the more reason to keep people up to date.

    Mr. Richard Paré: You are probably right, but we do not ask them to specialize in the same way, if you see what I mean. The staff, especially the researchers, get a lot out of the work of the committees, because they travel with the committees, they are with the committees, they benefit from the presence of experts who help the committees. As I mentioned at a previous meeting, they also use approximately 5% of their time to “self-specialize”. So all of that put together does not amount to a million dollars, I will grant you that, but we are headed in the right direction, and we have a program we are setting up precisely to further this kind of development. This will not only be for research analysts, but also for librarians. There are certain other groups, such as Library managers, who also need training from time to time.

º  (1630)  

    The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): You will not be surprised if I bring this up again in the future.

    Mr. Richard Paré: No, it will be a pleasure.

[English]

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Thank you very much, Mr. Morin.

    Anyone on the government side...Mr. Gallaway or Mr. Duplain?

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Duplain (Portneuf, Lib.): I have a question. My questions may not be very complex because this is my first meeting and I have to get used to this new universe, but I want to congratulate you. We use the Research Branch services and you do truly extraordinary work. People are very courteous, very dedicated, and I commend you for that.

    However, I did not expect the budget to be so high; I was really surprised. I have a simple technical question: how many employees are there at the Library?

    Mr. Richard Paré: About 300, but they are not all permanent employees.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: I see.

    Mr. Richard Paré: In Ms. Brydon's group, for instance, there are students who work as guides for the visits to Parliament during the summer. They are tourist guides, and these are mostly students who work during the summer, but not during the rest of the year. We have others who work part time during the year. So we cannot say that they are all permanent employees.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: I would like to ask you a question on a topic you were discussing earlier. When I look at this, I think that we have something that is very efficient for parliamentarians and for the public, but especially for parliamentarians.

    Sometimes we tend to buy powerful computers whose possibilities we barely exploit. Do you feel that members really use your services to the full? Do you have statistics, percentages that would express to what extent members are aware of the services of the Library of Parliament and the ways in which they use them?

    Mr. Richard Paré: When you talk about whether people are aware of those services, that is the right question. We think that they do not know the Library sufficiently, but in terms of statistics, the survey we carried out last year indicated that there was a small percentage of heavy users who call on the Library's services a great deal. There was a very high percentage of members—I do not remember the figure exactly, but it might have been around 70%—who call on our services occasionally, and a small percentage who almost never use the Library's services. But all members used it at least once or twice a year. That is something.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: So the “not very often” could refer to people who use your services once or twice a year.

    Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, that is it. Among those who used the services a great deal, I could name one parliamentarian who sometimes made around 100 requests per week. We had him at the top of the list of users. We intend to publicize our services, especially during the new Parliament. We are getting ready for the 38th Parliament and we are going to launch a campaign to raise awareness about the services that are available to you.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: That is the difference. I realize after having spoken to members that some of them are afraid of exaggerating. That is a fear that some members expressed. They are afraid to exaggerate, or they do not dare—

    Mr. Richard Paré: My answer would be that you should dare. Do not be afraid to exaggerate. If you really exaggerate and if this creates problems for your colleagues, we will let you know. We always provide confidential service, of course.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: Do you have a percentage of use broken down by political allegiance?

    Mr. Richard Paré: No, I do not think so.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: You do not have that.

    Mr. Richard Paré: No, I do not think so.

º  (1635)  

    Mr. Claude Duplain: What are you going to do to demystify the Library's services for members?

    Mr. Richard Paré: As I was saying, we are preparing a program. We are going to attempt to raise awareness of our services among new parliamentarians. We are also going to target our program to experienced parliamentarians. We are going to invite those who will be returning and we are going to organize meetings in order to listen. This year we earmarked $10,000 for a specific activity to that effect. We also work in cooperation with the House of Commons and the Senate, especially the House of Commons, which is also getting ready for the 38th Parliament. We take part in their program. That is useful, because it is less expensive for us to do this with partners.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: Since what you make available online is very efficient, I often go and do research in your documents. When we need documents we always go there first to see if we can find the document, before asking for your help.

    Can you monitor that? Do you have any way of knowing that we use that service whenever we turn to it, so that you can have some idea of the number of users?

    Ms. Lynn Brodie: Yes, we can tally the number of users, but because of the way the system was designed and the way in which your addresses are assigned, we cannot know whether the user is someone from the House, the Senate or the Library. All we know is that a user is from the Hill or, if this involves something on the Internet site, if the user is someone from the outside.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: At least you can get some idea of the topics involved. I suppose you prepare briefs on certain topics in advance, without being asked to do so.

    Is that the case?

    Ms. Lynn Brodie: To the extent that it is possible, we try to prepare certain subjects which we think will generate a higher number of requests for information. During the previous Parliament we worked quite closely with the Research Branch to create what we called tips, in English, which were brief documents that gave an overview of a topic which we felt would be raised in Parliament, as well as a list of links to web sites that could also be of assistance to the person and provide him or her with more information.

    Mr. Claude Duplain: Thank you.

[English]

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Thank you very much.

    Mr. Gallaway, do you have anything you'd like to ask?

    Hon. Roger Gallaway (Sarnia—Lambton, Lib.): I'll ask one quick question on the security program. We often think of people going into libraries and stealing books. What is the security program? Maybe you can just explain it.

    Mr. Richard Paré: When the House and the Senate are located in a building, they provide the security. For instance, in the Centre Block, the security for the library building--which is now closed, but when it's open--is ensured by the House of Commons. But when we are in other locations, they don't provide the security for us.

    We thought we were covered, but we are not, so we have to do something. We have the services of Madam Bryden, the public service, in the Darcy McGee building, and this is not covered by the House. That is why we will have to do our share.

    Hon. Roger Gallaway: Okay, thank you.

    The Joint Chair (Mr. Stan Dromisky): Thank you very much.

    If there aren't any further questions, I would like to ask one pertaining to the training and informing of members of Parliament about your services.

    Since 1993, I know there have been dramatic changes and the introduction of all kinds of new technology, processes, and so forth to gather, store, and share information. There's no doubt about that. But in most MPs' offices, it's the young guys who are the gung-ho operators of all the technology. They are the ones who really request the information for individual MPs.

    It's not only the MPs who have to be made aware. I ask you to consider that the individuals who have been designated within MPs' offices have to be very knowledgeable about the extent to which they can use the technology you have in your control. Many of the young people on the Hill are not aware of that. I know that for a fact. Many of them are very enthused by the kinds of things that can be done, with your cooperation and your technology.

    That's all I have to say. Thank you very much.

    Is there further business?

    The members of the committee may notice that there is consideration of main estimates. There are two statements at the bottom of that page. I'm asking you to just let that be. These will be deemed reported by the end of May, I believe. That's very good.

    As there are no further new points or items for our committee meeting, the meeting is adjourned.