Lifecycle of Parliamentary Documents: United Kingdom
own materials. The National Archives has noted that under this legal framework, “[t]he British Library is entitled to receive all externally available publications produced by government departments in paper or electronic format.”[1]
The legal deposit obligations includes un-numbered House of Commons, House of Lords, Act, and Command papers.[2] The one major exception is for content published before the regulations were made. The British Library does not collect government publications that are intended for internal audiences, such as internal circulars or internal guidance. [3] These publications fall under the collections policy of the National Archives for “grey materials,” discussed below.
B. House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries'
The House of Commons and House of Lords both have their own libraries that maintain a collection of books, journals, and databases for the use of MPs and peers. The purpose of these libraries is to provide research and information to MPs, peers, and their staff, and they provide resources to support these research needs.[4] The libraries do not appear to have a mandate to collect parliamentary materials in print. The National Archives has stated that “the Library of the UK Parliament has a particular requirement to be able to trace all government publications,”[5] but this appears to refer to the Parliamentary Archives.
C. Parliamentary Archives
Parliament first started to collect and preserve its records in 1497.[6] In modern times, this responsibility falls to the Parliamentary Archives, which works to “capture the digital and paper documents which form the official record of the UK Parliament.”[7] Its mission is
to safeguard the records of Parliament throughout their lifecycle—that is, from their creation or receipt to their destruction or archiving—and to maintain their accessibility thereafter, no matter what their format.[8]
- ↑ National Archives, Operation Selection Policy 36: Publications/Grey Literature ¶¶ 4.1.6 & 6.1.4 (2016), https://perma.cc/2A5M-AFES. These include annual and departmental reports, externally available guidance and standards, research reports, consultation papers, journals, external circulars, codes of practice, and external training manuals.
- ↑ The National Archives, Parliamentary Papers Guidance, supra note 5, at 26.
- ↑ The National Archives, Operation Selection Policy 36: Publications/Grey Literature, supra note 64, ¶ 4.1.8.
- ↑ About the Commons Library, House of Commons Library, https://perma.cc/8KWP-H9E6; About Us, House of Lords Library, https://perma.cc/6WPW-RTDJ.
- ↑ The National Archives, Publishing: A Guide for Government Organisations, supra note 50, at 7.
- ↑ UK Parliament, Parliamentary Archives, Collections Information Policy, supra note 52, ¶ 3.1.
- ↑ About Us, UK Parliament, Parliamentary Archives, https://perma.cc/5849-QZ9T.
- ↑ Parliamentary Archives, Digital Preservation Strategy for Parliament ¶ 11, https://perma.cc/KBL5-3Z9R.
