The library and archives of the Maltese parliament following the migration process from the grandmaster’s palace to the new parliament building

Abstract

This long essay is a study which is being presented to the Faculty of Media Knowledge Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Diploma in Archives and Records Management of the University of Malta. It is an attempt to analyse the situation of the Library and the Archives of the Maltese Parliament as it was before the migration and after the migration process from the Grand Master’s Palace to the New Parliament Building, it is an overview of the resources that were in the then House of the Maltese Parliament up to the migration that started after the 4th May 2015 when Parliament moved House to the New Building. I identified the resources available that included both books and non books material. The situation as was found in the Old Parliament Building was that of identification and classification according to different sections in order to ensure that when the migration takes place, which took place, there would be a better process to organize in the New Parliamentary Library Building. I had the both pleasure and also the honour to have been the person in charge of the whole migration process of this Library. I found that cataloguing of this Library material is only up to 1988 which need to be upgraded and followed after this migration process. The importance of this legislature was also highlighted as a number of publications have been in the agenda of the present Speaker of the House, which include the Journal mill-Parlament, four volumes of is-Sedja Titkellem, and other publications like ‘The voice of the Parliamentary Diplomacy’. In my long essay I tried to make a clear road map for the migration process which is an excellent opportunity for the Parliamentary Building and Archives to be upgraded in their infrastructure. The following are Chapters are based on this study, namely, Chapter 2: The importance of a Parliamentary Library, Chapter 3: Preparation and upkeep of the new Parliamentary Library in the New Parliament, Chapter 4: Questionnaire overview. A questionnaire was posed to eight persons such as The Speaker, Dr. Anglu Farrugia, the Clerk of the House Mr. Raymond Scicluna, the Clerk Assistant Ms. Pauline Abela, Dr. Charles Farrugia who is Malta’s National Archivist and the CEO of the National Archives, the Inspector of Records within the National Archives of Malta Mr. Ivan Ellul and Mr. Claudio Laferla, Research Analyst at the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA). Professor Godfrey Pirotta and Professor Ray Mangion were also asked but one declined my request and the other one did not return any answer. One can also find plans which have been approved for the layout of the New Library and Archives and also a photo where I was explaining Ms. Juana Lahousse-Juarez, Director General for Communication in the European Parliament the project that is going to be done in the minus two level.