Following is the second in a series of occasional articles on researchers who come to the Library specifically to mine resources unique to the institution.
Last summer, Ukraine experienced its first transition from one democratically elected president to another. It was a historic moment for Ukranians.
But legislators were completely unprepared for the shift in power. They thought that the incumbent president would win reelection, so no one bothered to research how the change in presidents should legally take place.
Frantic for answers, legislators in the Ukrainian Parliament called Oksana Horbunova to find out how other countries vested power in a new administration. Ms. Horbunova, in turn, searched around the world for solutions and gave parliamentarians the information they needed to install Leonid Kuchma as president.
To more easily give parliamentarians the answers they needed in the future, Ms. Horbunova accepted a fellowship through the Women's Research and Education Institute and was assigned to work in the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Information Technology Services of the Library last fall.
"The Library is so exciting for me," Ms. Horbunova says. "It is a dream for me to have such a resource in Ukraine."
When she goes back to Ukraine in April, she will be able to use her computer in the Information Services Division of the Ukranian Parliament to search statutes and regulations in other countries. She will be using equipment, communications links and training provided by CRS.
Ms. Horbunova is one of 11 women selected last year by the Women's Research and Education Institute to receive a Congressional Fellowship on Women and Public Policy. The goal of the program is to train women to be leaders in public policy formation and to examine issues from the perspective and needs of women. The Washington-based Eurasia Foundation is sponsoring her visit.
Ms. Horbunova is no neophyte when it comes to computers. She graduated from Kiev University with a degree in computer science. And she worked for 10 years with computers in the Ministry of the Interior when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union.
In August 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence, her boss left the ministry to run the Information Services Division of the Ukrainian Parliament and asked her to go with him. There, Ms. Horbunova prepares a daily summary of important international events for legislators, among other duties.
Like many legislatures in emerging democracies, the resources of the Ukrainian Parliament are limited. Under Communism, all of the parliaments were "rubber stamp." Soviet republics took their orders from Moscow and therefore didn't need to know how to craft the best policies. Their libraries and information systems were correspondingly mediocre. To get up to speed as quickly as possible, the Ukrainian Parliament has focused on setting up an information system that takes full advantage of the Internet, given that it is such a cost effective way of acquiring and storing information.
Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have the funds to pay for the computers needed to access the network. Ms. Horbunova says that the Library, as part of the CRS program of assistance funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, is buying computers for the Ukrainian Parliament and that Congressional Research Service staffers have been traveling to Kiev, the capital, to help set them up, as well as developing an effective information gathering, analysis and reporting system for the Ukrainian members of Parliament.
Ms. Horbunova will be in charge of maintaining the Internet connection. To prepare herself for that task, she is putting in long days at the Information Technology Services Division, Law Library and CRS.
Of all the information on the Internet, none is more important to the Ukrainian Parliament than that of the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), Ms. Horbunova says. Created at LC's Law Library, the network will allow participating legislatures all over the world to share statutes and regulations. The Law Library is coordinating the content of the network while ITS is coordinating the software and hardware design. Ms. Horbunova is working closely with both to get Ukrainian information on GLIN and to access information about other countries from the network.
"We are starting to create a new constitution, and very often the deputies need to have an example of a foreign constitution," Ms. Horbunova said.
Ms. Horbunova was particularly hard at work in December at a GLIN conference held at the Library. She represented Ukraine along with representatives from Poland, Kuwait, Brazil and six other countries. Eight more are scheduled to join the network next year. Representatives have been meeting for the last few years to work out the complicated details of the network project.
The computer link will also help Ukraine solve its most vexing problem: improving the economy, Ms. Horbunova said. Ukraine is trying to privatize its economy by selling off state-owned companies, which have been losing money for decades. The database will help lawmakers draft privatization laws as adroitly as possible, she predicted.
Exposure through the Internet to different laws and ideas will help in another way as well, Ms. Horbunova said.
"In the former Soviet Union all people had to think alike. It was dangerous to have other [kinds of] thinking," Ms. Horbunova said. "Right now, we have had two years of independence, but not everybody thinks and speaks openly. It is important for parliament employees to create an information analysis system that encourages independent thinking," and exposure to the Internet will help.
Though deep in the nitty gritty of the Internet project, Ms. Horbunova is taking full advantage of her stay in Washington. Before she returns to Ukraine, She will work for a member of Congress and thereby get a behind- the-scenes look at how U.S. policy is made.
For the next few years, Ms. Horbunova says she will be applying the insights she has gleaned at the Library to helping Ukrainian parliamentarians craft statutes and regulations with a minimum of grief.
