Official names of Chambers: House of Commons (2)
Member of the ASGP

2. Address
House of Commons
Department of the Library
Houses of Parliament
London SW1A 0AA
Tel.: *(44)(171)207219 4272
Fax: *(44)(171)207219 5839
Telex: 916318
E-mail: hclibrary@parliament.uk
Homepage:

3. Details on the Library
Year of foundation: 1818
Person in charge: Ms Priscilla Baines
Position or official title: Librarian
Number of library staff: 204
Number of professional librarians: 31
Number of research and subject analyst staff in the Library: 39
Number of secretarial and support staff: 77
Number of other staff: 57 (Senior managers, senior staff not in research andcomputer staff. All figures relate to posts not individuals. There are staff with professional library qualifications in posts not so designated.)
Size of collection: 250,000
Number of annual accessions: 4,000
Annual acquisitions budget: 370,000 Sterling (~ US$ 560,000)
Number of current periodicals: 2,500
Periodicals indexed for relevant articles: Yes
Number of periodicals which are currently indexed for articles: 176
Number of periodical articles indexed per year: 6,400
Number of current newspapers: 90
Press cuttings: Yes
Indexing of Parliamentary Papers: Yes, by the Library
Library in charge of the archival materials of the Parliament: No
Library uses a thesaurus or a classification system for subject indexing: thesaurus
Automation of cataloguing: no
Is the automated library catalogue accessible as an online catalogue to outside users?: no
Clientele: Members of Parliament and their staff. Parliamentary staff.
Number of reading rooms: 8 (146)
Number of loans per year: 4.000
Reference services: yes
Number of reference requests per year:55,000
Current bibliographies: no
Retrospective subject bibliographies: no
Analysis and research: yes
External database searches: 1.800
Analysis and research: Yes, by the Library
Other special services: Video loans service
Other special collections of the Library: Parliamentary papers, other U.K. Government publications, publications of the United Nations and agencies, European Union publications
Any other information: Part of the Library Department is the Research Service (80 staff). The Research Service is organized in seven sections: Economic Policy and Statistics, Business and Transport, Social Policy, Home Affairs, Science and Environment, Social and General Statistics and Parliament and Constitution Centre. It undertakes research for individual Members of Parliament and prepares Research papers for use by all Members. The Parliamentary On-Line Information Service (POLIS) is a computer database created by the Library including parliamentary papers, parliamentary debates, European Union legislation, as well as other Library acquisitions. It is available outside Parliament via a commercial bureau. The Houce of Commons Information Office, which answers questions about Parliament. The Parliamentary Education Unit is also part of the Library Department
IFLA membership: Yes

4. Publications published by the Library
Research Papers
Around 100 research papers related to legislation and other topics of current parliamentary interest are produced annually. Available from the Parliament website at www.parliament.uk
Factsheets
Brief descriptions of various aspects of the House of Commons. - Available from the Parliament website. - Publication of new Factsheets is noted in the Weekly information bulletin
Information lists
Obtainable free from the House of Commons Information Office, House of Commons Library
House of Commons Library documents
Published by HMSO
Weekly information bulletin
Published by HMSO and available from the Parliament website
Sessional information digest
Published by HMSO at the end of each Session and available from the Parliament website. - covers Parliament's work

5. Publications concerning the Library
Menhennet, David: The House of Commons Library: a History, (2nd ed)the Stationery Office 2000 ISBN 0-10-850641-X (House of Commons Library Document No 21)
Menhennet, David: The Library's information, documentation and research services // In: Rush, Michael (ed.): The House of Commons : services and facilities, 1972 - 1982
Menhennet, David: The House of Commons Library at Westminster // In: Parlament und Bibliothek. - München : Saur, 1986. - p. 123 - 133
Englefield, Dermot: Parliament and information : the Westminster scene. - London, 1981
Englefield, Dermot: Workings of Westminster. - London : Gower, 1991
Lock, Geoffrey: Information for Parliament // In: Ryle, M.: The Commons under scrutiny. - London : Routledge, 1988. - p. 34 - 52
Guides to the services of the House of Commons Library. - 1994. - 24 p.
6. Parliamentary documents
Parliamentary debates : (Hansard)
Reports speeches and oral questions fully. - Defined as a report "which though not strictly verbatim, is substantially the verbatim report with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious mistakes corrected, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument". - An issue of Hansard is published for each day's sitting and will report the debate up until 10.30 pm of that day. - It is published about 7 am the next morning. - 5 issues form the Weekly Hansard (text uncorrected) and 10 issues make a bound volume of Hansard (text corrected). - There are 18 - 20 bound volumes in a session. - A Forthnighly Index to the uncorrected text is published as a separate publication. - Bound volumes have indexes to the corrected text and a cumulated index to the session is published as (a) separate volumes(s) called the General index to the parliamentary debates. - An issue of Hansard publishes Parliamentary Questions and Answers asked in the House of Commons and Answered by Government Ministers [Oral Questions and Answers] and answers from Ministers in writing which are published in full in their own sequence after the day's debate [Written Questions and Answers]. -Collections of debates go back to the year 1660 and printings of individual speeches even earlier. - there is also Cobbett's Parliamentary history 1066 - 1803. - from 1803 - 1909 Cobbett and then the Hansard family and then other publishers published the debates on a regular basis. - In 1909 the House of Commons itself took responsibility for the publication of its debates through Her Majesty's Stationery Office. - Since 1989 the Debates have been published on microfiche
Standing Committee debates
Standing Committees debate legislation and also subjects. - The verbatim report of the debates is published daily. - (The Minutes of proceedings of Standing Committee, i.e. the decisions, are published, however, as House of Commons papers). - At the end of each session the debates are collected together in a set of volumes. - There is no published index to Standing Committee debates. - Standing Committee debates has been published since 1919
The journal
Prepared at the end of each session from the Votes and proceedings. - the permanent official record of the proceedings of the House. - arranged chronologically by sitting days. - record of what business took place, not what was said (see Debates) although it includes the text of the Queen's speeches and on rare occasions a speech by, for instance, the Speaker. - a detailed index is prepared for each published volume of the Journal and forms part of it. - it is in two sequences: the first sequence covers procedural matters and includes a complete list of papers laid before the House whether they were ordered to be printed or not. - the second sequence covers subjects and includes details of committee work. - under Select Committees are listed all reports by the committees and under Standing Committees are listed all Bills referred to them. - a separate volume called General index to the journal is published every ten years. - the manuscript Journals exist from 1547 although there are gaps in the late sixteenth century. - the printing of the Journal from 1547 started in 1742
Sessional papers
This group of papers is published in three series:
Bills
Bills are introduced either as Government Bills or Private Members' Bills. - Bills are published separately each with its own number. - (Amendments to proposed Bills are published in the Vote bundle). - Bills are reprinted if amended. - At the end of each session they are bound in volumes arranged alphabetically by title and within title by number of the printing. - They are indexed in the Sessional index of parliamentary papers. - Since 1800 they have been bound up each session
House of Commons papers
Cover a wide range of the work of the House of Commons. - Minutes and reports of Select Committees, and Written Evidence submitted to, as well as Oral Evidence taken by, Select Committees are all published as House of Commons papers. - The Minutes of proceedings of both Standing and Select Committees are also published as House of Commons papers. - They have their own number sequence starting afresh at 1 each session. - They are indexed in the House of Commons sessional index
Command papers
Command papers are papers with information laid before the House by the Government, i.e. by 'Command of the Queen'. - They have an abbreviated prefix, e.g. Cd and are numbered from 1 - 9999
A printed index to all of the above sets of papers is published as a final volume to the Papers of the session. - These published indexes have been cumulated since 1800 in the periods 1800 - 1852, 1852 - 1899, 1900 - 1948/49, 1950 - 1958/59, and 1959/60 - 1968/69. - From 1800 to 1968/69 the Sessional papers were arranged in four groups: Bills, Reports of Committees, Reports of Commissioners, and Accounts and papers. - From 1968/69 the arrangement was Public bills and minutes of proceedings of the Standing Committee considering the legislation in alphabetical order of Bill title, and then Reports, accounts and papers arranged alphabetically by subject. - There are a few collections of pre-1800 printed Papers, and those of the first half of the nineteenth century are rare, of the second half, less so. - Reprint of pre-1800 Papers exists and a selection of nineteenth-century Papers has also been published. - Currently a collection of Papers for a session numbers 40 - 50 volumes. - Papers since 1800 are available on microfiche
The vote bundle
Business (working) papers for sittings of the House. - Containing the previous sitting day's business, the agenda for the current day's business, and future business they consist of three series:
Votes and proceedings
Formal record of business transacted the previous sitting day. - Its Appendix I records papers laid before the House of Commons by the Government. - Appendix II lists Members appointed to serve on Standing Committees and Appendix III lists the reports, evidence and memoranda presented by Select Committees. - An occasional Supplement to the votes and proceedings publishes the text of Petitions
Order paper
Votes and proceedings
Formal record of business transacted the previous sitting day. - Its Appendix I records papers laid before the House of Commons by the Government. - Appendix II lists Members appointed to serve on Standing Committees and Appendix III lists the reports, evidence and memoranda presented by Select Committees. - An occasional Supplement to the votes and proceedings publishes the text of Petitions
Remaining Orders of the day and notices of Motion
Future business. - Includes lists of Bills awaiting consideration and Statutory Instruments referred to Committees
The vote bundle or parts of it are published each day the House of Commons sits. - It is broken down into its various series each with its own pagination, and bound up in about 15 series at the end of each session. - There is no published index to the Vote bundle. - However, some parts of the papers are included and indexed in the House of Commons Journal when these papers are bound up. - They are arranged in volumes, normally between 30 and 40 a session, under the following headings: Votes, Public Petitions, Public Bills, Private Business, Private Bills, Order Papers, Notices of Motion, Supplement to Votes. - The Votes and proceedings has been published since 1688. - The Vote bundle in various forms dates from 1825
House of Commons parliamentary papers : 1801- 1960/61. - Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey
Microfiche edition. - The sessions from 1975/76 onwards are also available on microfiches
Standing orders of the House of Commons public business. - London : HMSO, 1991. - 110 p. - (House of Commons papers; 1st session 1991/92)
Standing orders of the House of Commons private business. - London: HMSO, 1991. - 213 p. - (House of Commons papers; 582nd session 1990/91)

(updated in March 2003)