[1] Control and direction of the library is provided by the Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate.
[2] By convention, one position had to be held by an anglophone and the other by a francophone;[2] in practice the anglophone always held the parliamentary position and the francophone always held the general one, except for a period during World War II when general librarian Felix Desrochers concurrently held the parliamentary position on a de facto basis, as following the death of Martin Burrell in 1938 the House of Commons did not formally appoint a new parliamentary librarian until 1944.
Following the creation of the National Library of Canada in 1953, the general librarian's position was phased out as those responsibilities and materials were transferred to the new institution.
[2] With the discontinuation of the general librarian's position, a new position was created for associate librarian, which was also consistently held by a francophone until 1994, when Richard Paré, the incumbent of that position at the time of chief librarian Erik Spicer's retirement, became the first francophone officially named to the top post.
The library provides reference material for use by members of the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as officials of the Parliament of Canada.