British Parliamentary Libraries: History, International Comparisons, and Some Lessons for Tomorrow's Legislature Libraries

Britain’s House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries have a lengthy history beginning with small collections of books and papers in the eighteenth century and evolving into today’s large organizations offering a sophisticated range of services. The central theme of this article is the conservatism of these institutions over most of their history, with the creation of modern library facilities only beginning in 1945 for the Commons Library (a process that did not accelerate until some three decades later) and in 1976 for the Lords. By way of comparison I will discuss: the U.S. Library of Congress (founded in 1800); Japan’s National Diet Library (created in the postwar reconstruction in 1948); and, to offer an example of a smaller country, Ireland’s Oireachtas Library. In summarizing the history of the British parliamentary libraries, I have also tried to indicate some ways in which we might draw upon this historical experience to identify fruitful new future directions for libraries supporting legislatures throughout the world. British Parliamentary Libraries Most of this article is devoted to the history of the main parliamentary libraries (the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries) of the United Kingdom, but it also contains some comparisons with American, Japanese, and Irish parliamentary facilities.1 I have focused on what I believe are the salient points for consideration in the context of the aims of this collection of papers, so no attempt is made to explore every aspect of their complex histories or go into great detail. Parliamentary democracy is an often carelessly used expression that actually embraces two different concepts. Thus, ancient Athens had a system of direct democracy where major political issues were decided by assemblies of the entire (male) citizen population, as opposed to being settled by a much smaller number of their representatives meeting as a parliament. A version of direct democratic decision making continues to this day when a referendum is held on a particular issue. In most countries this is limited to rare national votes on constitutional matters or to approve international treaties (the plebiscites in Ireland on the Treaty of Lisbon being notable recent examples of the latter). The only referendum held in the UK as whole—in 1975 on whether to remain a member of the European Economic Community—involved a historic decision to “pool” some of Britain’s sovereignty. However, in Switzerland referenda are a familiar part of the political landscape and the range of issues they address much wider, with them also being held at cantonal and municipal level. Furthermore, many of the individual states of the United States and a number of municipalities conduct referenda on a broader range of proposals such as limits on taxes. English parliamentary history stretches back to the middle ages, but the legislatures of the late eighteenth century were certainly not democratic institutions. The upper chamber, the House of Lords, was composed overwhelmingly of noblemen who had inherited their seats along with their titles, occasionally reinforced by new members given peerages by the monarch, together with some senior bishops of the Church of England, all of them holding office for life. Members of its counterpart, the House of Commons, were elected by their constituencies and had to face reelection when each Parliament was dissolved. However, only a relatively small proportion of the population enjoyed the right to vote, many of these Members of Parliament (MPs) were effectively chosen by individual aristocrats who controlled their constituencies, while bribery and intimidation of voters often marred contested elections. Although Parliament had always needed records in documentary form, this material was held as scattered collections of records of parliamentary proceedings, laws, statistical returns, and reports. In 1780, it was suggested that the small collection of papers and books in the charge of the Clerk (senior executive officer) of the House of Commons be held in a single place. A couple of decades passed before a house in Abingdon Street was leased for this purpose. While it now had a home, the largely archival collection of official and semiofficial documents was in poor condition. Charles Abbot (elected Speaker in 1802) laid the basis for a properly organized Commons library when he instructed his staff to collate, bind, and index these parliamentary papers. In 1818 the first Commons Librarian was appointed and Speaker Abbot’s collection moved back to its own room in the Palace of Westminster.2 The House now developed a “library” in the more generally understood sense of a specific collection of published books along with the official documents, housed in accommodation 473 murphy/british parliamentary libraries