Parliamentary privilege in a NSW election year … no, not that kind!

It’s been a busy time at the New South Wales Parliamentary Library. If you have ever wondered what happens behind the walls at Macquarie Street, here’s a snapshot of what two new librarians at Parliament had the privilege of working on this election year.

By Amanda Hovey, Flax Soetjandra

The NSW Parliamentary Library is not open to the public, yet we serve the people of the state by providing library services to enable Parliament. Established in 1840, it is one of the oldest continuously running libraries in Australia. Classified as a ‘special library’, we house a bespoke collection that reflects key subject areas relating to the Parliament of NSW. In addition to our rare, valuable and historic items, we capture contemporary news articles, media releases and government publications and store them for generations to come in our digital archive. Our service mission is, ‘For every question, an answer you can trust,’ and we take our responsibility as stewards of this mighty collection with earnest.

As the 57th Parliament ends, we prepare to move forward from a unique set of challenges. These included a library review, resulting in a restructure and renovation of the physical space, all while pivoting the library service around the pandemic. But with COVID-19 behind us, it’s time to ‘Shake it off’! This year will mark the 58th Parliament of NSW. With this comes a new Government, a new Premier, a new Speaker and a new President and many recently elected MPs and MLCs. We needed to get ready to welcome them all.

The start of the new Parliament served as the perfect deadline to get new library initiatives up and running. After all, who doesn’t love a good deadline? We used this opportunity to undertake collections management, improve cultural sensitivity, tidy our catalogue records, commence a new engagement strategy for our regional and remote clients and implement new library systems.

Our existing intranet site was outdated and not fit for purpose, nor did it reflect our welcoming and energised presence. Consequently, the library pages were moved to LibGuides, with a clean, vibrant and new visual identity. Library users are now met with an engaging site, offering a new A–Z database and journals list, which features improved navigation and searchability. Power BI was mastered and harnessed to create a self-serve resource for finding information about Members of NSW Parliament and the electorates they serve.

Staff attended two training sessions to assist with refreshing the library’s new online presence. These were the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) Canva skills workshop, run by the Monash Health librarians, and Telling a Compelling Story with Data. Our new skills enabled us to design infographics, reports and data visualisation graphics for both the library and the research service publications.

Our new library event space, which doubles as a reading room, was tested. We chose to present an information session to staff on disaster bins. The presentation included a controlled hands-on activity for attendees to deal with water ingress. We visited and consulted our learned neighbors at NSW State Library to ensure our disaster bin knowledge and equipment was on par (shout out to the State Library!). This presentation tested the technology and trialed the space as a seated event forum. Post-event we surveyed attendees for feedback, enabling us to develop datainformed workflows for future events.

As ‘new’ librarians at the NSW Parliamentary Library, we have been motivated by an election year. We participated in implementing and testing refreshed services and resources for the highly respected NSW Parliamentary Library, while also honouring its history and importance. Our parliamentary privilege is working at the NSW Parliamentary Library, where we play a part in facilitating democracy.

More Information

The NSW Parliamentary librarian, Deborah Bennet, is organising the Australian Parliamentary Library Association Conference later this year.

Amanda Hovey

Digital Services Librarian

NSW Parliamentary Library

amanda.hovey@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Flax

Soetjandra (right) Client Services Librarian

NSW Parliamentary Library flax.soetjandra@parliament.nsw.gov.au