OSCE Mission to Montenegro supports upgrade of Parliament library

PODGORICA, 3 March 2009 - The Library and Research Section of the Parliament of Montenegro, improved with support from the OSCE Mission to Montenegro, was presented to Members of Parliament and representatives of international organizations in Podgorica today.

Under a four-year project to strengthen the capacity of the Montenegrin Parliament,funded by the Government of Austria and supported by the German Foreign Ministry, the OSCE Mission to Montenegro hired a professional librarian to provide technical assistance to the library. The project also provided training on research methods and techniques and supplied more than 400 new books and publications.

"I am very pleased that, as a result of our project, today we have the opportunity to learn more about new features the parliamentary library is offering to its users," said Ambassador Paraschiva Badescu, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Podgorica, at the presentation. "Let me express my hope that full use of the library would be made in the future and that it would develop further to become an important element of the professional service of the Parliament of Montenegro."

As a part of the project, the library became a member of the Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services (COBISS) in November 2008 and has begun work on developing an online catalogue that will be available to all COBISS members. The library is also part of the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation, a tool for inter-parliamentary co-operation and exchange of information.