Public Information Online

1
Aim To increase awareness of, and access to,
Parliamentary publications, and to encourage best
practice in the procurement, dissemination and
use of public information.
2
About Us
Parliamentary Bookshop The Parliamentary
Bookshop is the content suppliers for Public
Information Online. The Parliamentary Bookshop is
a trading division of the House of Commons and
has unparalleled access to documents and
information about them.
Dandy Booksellers has been in business since
1992 and specializes in the supply of
Parliamentary material. Dandy is the one stop
shop for all UK Official Publications.
We have worked with our library customers to
develop a resource which is both comprehensive
and easy to use
3
What is Public Information Online?

• Public Information Online is a web-based database
  of electronic publications from
• - UK Parliament - Scottish Parliament -
  Northern Ireland Assembly - Scottish Government
• All material is available in electronic PDF
  format
• Updated daily on the day of publication
• No hidden monthly or yearly fees
• Once you have purchased a session you will have
  access permanently

4
Why Subscribe to PIO?
Why Subscribe?

• PIO is simple to use, offers you UNLIMITED ACCESS
  and saves you money
• Comprehensive electronic Parliamentary resource
  used by all major academic libraries in the UK as
  well as The British Library and National Library
  of Scotland
• The Benefit of Public Information Online is
  that it  offers a one-stop-shop for access to
  the publications of the Scottish Parliament and
  Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly as
  well as the UK Parliament at Westminster.  This
  is why the British Library is subscribing to the
  product for the use of its patrons. Jennie
  Grimshaw, Curator, Official Publications, British
  Library
• I think it's excellent. The improvements are
  great. I particularly like the Bill tracker and
  the ability to find associated documents.
  Simon Robinson, University of Leeds
• Ideal companion to House of Commons Parliamentary
  Papers from Proquest which runs to 2006. PIO
  starts from 06/07 session onwards
• Updated on the day of publication no need to
  wait days for Parliamentary documents
• Know as soon as a document is available with
  customizable RSS or Email Alerting
• PIO fully supports multi-user access both on and
  off site via IP address or User name and password

5
Our Mission
Save Time . . . Save Space . . . Save Money . . .
SAVE SPACE Keep abreast of ALL Parliamentary
Papers without having to find shelf space for them
SAVE TIME No need to spend time receipting and
managing Parliamentary material
SAVE MONEY Cost of hard copy is 5 times greater
per Session than a subscription to PIO
6
Westminster Content
All Westminster material from 2006-07 session
onwards

• House of Commons Papers
• House of Lords Papers
• Command Papers
• Bills and Bill Amendments
• Explanatory Notes to Bills
• Standing and Public Bill Committees
• Acts and Explanatory Notes
• Amending Statutory Instruments
• House of Commons Daily Hansard
• House of Lords Daily Hansard
• House of Commons Weekly Information Bulletin
• From 2008-09 session onwards

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Scottish Parliament Content
All Scottish Parliament material from session 3
onwards (June 07- Present)

• Papers
• Bills and Explanatory Notes
• Policy Memorandums to Bills
• Marshalled Lists
• Accompanying Documents to Bills
• Delegated Powers Memorandums
• Groupings
• Business Bulletins
• Official Report Meeting of Parliament
• Minutes of Proceedings
• Written Answers
• Official Reports of Committee Debates
• Acts and Explanatory Notes

8
Northern Ireland Assembly Content
All Northern Ireland Assembly material from
2008-09 session onwards

• Papers
• Bills
• Explanatory and Financial Memorandums
• Notices of Amendments
• Marshalled Lists
• Groupings
• Committee Reports
• Registers of Members Interests
• Acts and Explanatory Notes
• Official Report Hansard
• Official Report Hansard Written Answers

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Know what is passing through Parliament on a
daily basis
Speed Format

• All Sections updated daily
• All material available in PDF format
• Majority of PDFs available on the day of hard
  copy publication
• Stored in an SQL database on a dedicated server

Content can be supplied at the end of a session
for you to hold on your own servers
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Thesaurus
Subject Records

• Subject RecordsPIO uses Parliamentary
  Information Management Services (PIMS) records
  which follow the House of Commons Thesaurus.
  These records are produced by 14 full-time
  cataloguers at the House of Commons Library in
  London.
• Over 5000 Subject Categories allows users to
  narrow down searches into relevant subject areas,
  including

• Health, Employment, Education,
• Law, Income Tax

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My PIO has been set-up to help you keep
completely up to date with the latest additions
to PIO
My PIO

• Saved SearchingCreate your own collection of
  search results. Access, edit or delete these
  search results at a later date.
• Email Alerting RSS FeedsAlerts can be set up
  by Parliament, Paper Category, A Particular
  Bill, Corporate Author

Choose the frequency and format of your email
alerts
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The Public Information Online Bill Tracker allows
you to easily follow the progress of a Bill as it
goes through Parliament.
Bill Tracking

• Bills are listed by Parliamentary Session -
  simply choose the Bill that you want to follow.
• View the documents associated with your Bill.
• Search for keywords.
• Order results chronologically, alphabetically or
  by type of document.
• Save your search results to use at a later date.
• Sign up to RSS or email alerts to stay completely
  up to date with new additions to your chosen Bill.

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Boolean Searches
Searching

• Boolean searching - Narrows down your search
  using special terms before your keywords. Can be
  useful to minimize the number of search results.

Boolean operators AND (To make sure a keyword
is included) OR (Finds a matching document if
either of the terms exist in a document) NOT
(To make sure a keyword is not included)
credit crunch AND housing crisis
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Wildcard Searches
Wildcard

• Perform single or multiple character wildcard
  searches.
• For words where you are unsure of the spelling,
  use the ? to replace a character e.g.
  organi?ation would find organization or
  organisation.

Use an asterisk for multiple character wildcard
searches e.g. research to find researcher,
researching, researches, or researched
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Fuzzy Searches
Fuzzy

• Fuzzy search Use fuzzy searches to find words
  with similar spellings to your search term. Very
  useful for alternate spellings and medical
  terms or words that are tricky to spell. May
  bring up a very large number of results.

• To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "", symbol
  at the end of a Single word Term.

Search for ortism Brings up results for Autism
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Proximity search
Proximity

• Find words that are within a specific distance
  from each other.
• To do a proximity search use the tilde ()
  symbol at the end of a Phrase.

• credit crunch housing"10
• Use to find documents that contain the terms
  credit crunch and housing' within ten words of
  each other.

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Product Development
Product Development

• Welsh Assembly Parliamentary publications will be
  added to PIO by the end of 2009.
• Format We aim to add the choice of viewing
  documents on PIO in HTML format. Our challenge
  currently is to find a reliable method of
  converting PDF documents (created in a variety of
  different programs with widely different content
  e.g graphics) into reliable, accurately formatted
  HTML files.

18
Working Together

• Dandy Booksellers, the one stop shop for all UK
  official publications, is partnering with Bernan,
  the leading distributor of official U.S.
  government and intergovernmental publications, to
  make Public Information Online available to
  libraries in North America.

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Hard copy value of material currently on PIO
20
Special Introductory Offer
Special Introductory Offer Price Save better than
10 for 1st Year
PIO Annual Subscription Introductory
price - 9000
All information currently on PIO across all
sessions would cost in excess of 90,000 USD if
bought in hard copy!
Start Saving Money Today!
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Free Trial

• PIO can save you money, its comprehensive and
  its easy to use. Dont just take our word for
  it -see for yourself with a no obligation free
  trial!
• Please contact pio_at_bernan.com to register for
  your free trial
• Try PIO today, what have you got to lose!

22
Feedback
Feedback

• We would really appreciate any feedback and we
  would like to be able to ensure PIO becomes a
  valuable resource to you and your library users.
• Thank you for your interest,

Bruce Samuelson Director, Marketing Library
Services Bernan 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite
200 Lanham, MD 20706

• Donna Ravenhill
• Dandy Booksellers Ltd
• Units 3 4, 31-33 Priory Park Road
• London, NW6 7UP

301-459-2255 x5711 pio_at_bernan.com
44 (0)20 7624 2993
info_at_publicinformationonline.com