The Director of Parliamentary Information Services of the National Parliament of Solomon Islands, Mr. Boniface Supa has been duly elected as the new President of the Association of Parliamentary Librarians of the Asia and the Pacific (APLAP), at the closer of its 13th online conference today.
Mr. Supa is the only nominee for the President post prior to the APLAP’s General meeting and elections of new Executive Committee Office Bearers earlier today. He was nominated by the outgoing President, Dr Edgardo H. Pangilinan; Deputy Secretary General LIRMD-House of Representatives of Philippines.
“Since there is only one nomination for each position, and that the APLAP By-laws (1.5.3) on Voting states that in the event that there is only one nomination for a position, that person shall be declared duly elected by the Chairperson of the meeting” Dr Edgardo announced before concluding the Online Conference.
“So, by virtue of the powers vested in me as Chairperson of this meeting, I declare that the nominees for the positions of President, Vice President for Asia, Secretary and Treasurer are duly elected to the APLAP Executive Committee”
Dr Edgardo then declared to the 257 participants of the forty member countries within Asia and the Pacific to welcome their new set of Office bearers for the Fiscal years 2021-2023.
“My dear colleagues, please welcome our new APLAP Executive Committee”
The new President is Mr Boniface Supa, Director of Parliamentary Information Services of the National Parliament of Solomon Islands. The Vice-President for Asian Region is Ms. Fairlyn H. Sarga, Chief Information Service Librarian from the House of Representatives-Philippines. The new Secretary is Ms. Nicole Cottrell, Research Services Manager at the Parliamentary Service of the New Zealand Parliament and APLAP’s new Treasurer is Ms. Fathimath Shiham, Deputy Director of the Library of the People’s Majilis, the unicameral Legislative body of the Maldives.
“Accepting to take on this leadership role, I felt as someone, willing to learn and take up new challenges to the work of Parliamentary Librarians and Researchers, which I am passionate about”
“As your new APLAP President, and on behalf of my new executive team, I feel the best is yet to come if we are all together in this Journey”
Mr Supa told the on line conference that Parliamentary best practices, in terms of Library and research services demands changes in technologies to offer high quality professional support, that will always be timely and efficient to Members of Parliament.
“One area of consideration during times of crisis as information professionals is to offer significant support throughout the life cycle of the use of technology, that is design, development, implementation, operation and close cooperation with our respective Parliamentary ICT units as one area of focus; we must realise this, in order to come together in one shared online hub for Asia-Pacific Legislative Network”
The new APLAP President finally thank the outgoing President Dr Edgardo and team for their great leadership in the past two years and assures them to continue give support to his new executive with their expertise.
Mr. Supa was the APLAP Vice-President for Pacific region prior to his successful election.
The 13th APLAP online Conference is hosted by the Congress of the Philippines concluded today after a successful three days of sharing information and ideas on the theme “Enhancing the Responsiveness and Relevance of Parliamentary Library and Research Services during times of crisis”.
APLAP was founded in 1990, in the same year the first biennial conference was held in Seoul, Korea from 7-11 May 1990.
The National Parliament of Solomon Islands is next to host APLAP’s 14th Online Conference in 2023.
