NAL and NARS delegation and NDL executive members (from left: Dr. Nagao (Librarian), Ms. Ko, Mr. Choi, Ms. Sakata (Deputy Director General, Research and Legislative Reference Bureau), Mr. Tsukamoto (Director General, Research and Legislative Reference Bureau))

The third visit program with the National Assembly Library (NAL) and the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) of Korea was held from December 12 to 18, 2011 at the Tokyo Main Library of the National Diet Library (NDL). A staff member from each organization, Ms. Young Sook Ko, Deputy Director, Foreign Law Information Division, Law Library of NAL, and Mr. Yong Hoon Choi, Head of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Team of NARS, visited Tokyo for the program.

Started in 2000 as a staff-training program, the mutual visit program between the NDL and the NAL had been conducted every year since 2003. With the organization reform of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, NARS was established in 2007 to strengthen the legislative service for the assembly. In response to this, NDL, NAL and NARS agreed to have a three-way mutual visit program. A new agreement between these three organizations was concluded in autumn 2009 for the next four years.

In 2011 program, staff from each organization visited the NDL and the following main sessions were successfully completed.

In Session I, Ms. Ko introduced the work situation of the Law Library, target institutions of the law information service, basic materials and the current situation of the law information service. Mr. Nakayama introduced databases on parliament-related information such as Full-text Database System for the Minutes of the Diet and Index Database to Japanese Laws, Regulations and Bills. These reports were followed by a question-and-answer session with questions from the Korean side such as the standard of providing publications of the Research and Legislative Reference Bureau on the Internet, and the reasons for creatively using TIFF format or PDF format when creating parliament-related information databases. From the NDL side, the following questions were raised: composition of the parliament information advisory panel and basis for selecting of policy agenda on the legislative knowledge database, number of staff who create the Foreign Law Information Database System and the latest law newsletter (foreign law), the criteria for dividing the roles of NAL staff and outsourced staff. Questions about the affiliation of staff who write fact books and how they select themes were also asked.

In Session II, Mr. Choi presented the significance of food safety, food-related current situation and comprehensive measures on food safety in Korea. Mr. Kotera introduced incidents and accidents on food safety, institutions and challenges on food safety in Japan, radiation contamination problems caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and “safety” from the science aspect and “safety” from the consumer side. In the question-and-answer session following these reports, questions on the appointment and independence of Food Safety Commission members in Japan and countermeasures taken by the government against food fraud were asked from the Korean side. Divisions of roles between the Food & Drug Administration and The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Korea, the influence of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement on the food safety control system and the presence or absence of effort against bioterrorism using HACCP method were asked from the NDL.

In addition to these sessions, the delegation had meetings with the staff of the Parliamentary Documents and Official Publications Division (Ms. Ko) and the Agriculture, Forestry and Environment Division and the Land Development and Communications Division (Mr. Choi). At the end of the program, the delegation and the NDL staff talked about future programs.

The next program is scheduled to be held in Seoul with two delegates dispatched from the NDL.

 Reports of past programs in the NDL Newsletter

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