Archer Library: Government Publications: Finding Government Publications

Best Bet Databases - Canada and Provinces

Canada Commons: Government
Index and links for more than 500 Canadian government document collections, from major federal sites such as The Weekly Acquisitions List, to materials from political parties, local municipal departments, and individual historical websites.
Canada Commons
Access to Canadian e-books, health and public policy documents. Formerly 3 separate collections: Canadian Health Research, Canadian Public Policy, Canadian Publishers.
Canada Commons has become the new home for desLibris/Canadian Electronic Library as of May 2022.
Canadiana Online
Early Canadiana Online (ECO) is a digital library thousands of primary sources in Canadian history from the first European contact to the early 20th century.The collection is particularly strong in literature, women's history, travel and exploration, native studies and the history of French Canada.
Canada Year Book Historical Collection
Now the historical data in Statistics Canada's annual Canada Year Book is available free on the Internet in the Canada Year Book Historical Collection. It covers the first century of Canada's history, from 1867 to 1967, with historical text, tables, charts and maps, supplemented by interconnected learning resources for students and teachers.
GALLOP
This bilingual government and legislative publications portal is called GALLOPP (Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications Portal). It contains over 300,000 full-text documents (a majority dating back to 1995) from Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The resource is not comprehensive or exhaustive but archives information is at http://aplicportal.ola.org/aplicscopenote-eng.asp. This resource is managed by APLIC/ABPAC (Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada).
Government of Saskatchewan Publications Centre
Archives of full-text publications varies according to department/agency. Searching options include ministry, subject, publication type,
bylaws, and RSS feeds.
Library of Parliament Research Publications
"The Parliamentary Information and Research Service (PIRS) provides a consulting service for individual parliamentarians, responding to questions that require research and analysis on legal, economic, scientific, or social science matters. Researchers obtain and analyze material, and write letters, short notes and longer research papers at the request of Senators and Members of the House of Commons."
LIPAD (Linked Parliamentary Data Project)
Full text searchable, downloadable, and interactive transcript of the Canadian House of Commons Hansard Debates, 1901-Current.

Quick Find

Quick Find is a search engine that simultaneously searches the holdings of the University of Regina and federated college libraries (including books, journals, videos, sound recordings, etc.), and many databases of journal articles, government documents, dissertations, and more.

Government publications can be accessed via Quick Find in a number of ways:

Title: (e.g. Royal Commission of Inquiry into the response of the Newfoundland criminal justice system to complaints. )

Author: (e.g. Canada Dept. of National Defense)

Subject: (e.g. Aged - Housing)

Keywords: (e.g. Quebec and Separation)

Quick Find
A search engine for browsing the holdings of the University of Regina and federated college libraries.
Quick Find Guide
Provides an overview of the Quick Find system alongside helpful tips and video tutorials.

Microfiche

Microlog, Canadian research index
Call Number: Z 1373 A1 M5
ISBN: 0707-3135
Publication Date: 1979-
An annual publication which lists older government publications from various levels in Canada available on microform (microfiche, microfilm, microcard).

Key Titles

Ottawa Letter
Call Number: HC 111 A1 V53
This newsletter is housed on the 5th floor. It keeps abreast of issues in politics and policies, intergovernment affairs, international and interprovincial trade, and a broad array of taxation, regulatory, statistical, and other issues, as well as regular updates on the progress of federal legislation. The bi-weekly publications is researched and written by veteran Ottawa journalist Ken Pole. Our holdings cover 1977 to 2015

Browsing the Shelves

Government information resources that have a specific subject focus are now shelved according to the LC (Library of Congress) classification scheme and are shelved with other materials in the same subject area. Government information resources that pertain to the workings of government, such as statutes, are shelved according to the CODOC system designed specifically for government information resources.

Finding items organized by CODOC number can be confusing at first. These quick rules will help you:

Nothing comes before something. (Example: CA3 HW comes before CA3 HW 24.)
Items are organized alphanumerically. That means organized by letters and then by numbers. So CA1BS85-C224 comes before CA2ONLR – 94Y57
CODOC organizes things by the government body, branch or dept. that created the resources (instead of organizing things by subject area)
Every part of the CODOC number means something specific:

For example, the call number CA2 ON MA 160 - 89 M76 means:

CA	Country / Organization Code	Canada
2	Level of Government Code	Provincial
ON	Province Code	Ontario
MA	Department	Ministry of Municipal Affairs
160	Branch	Municipal Management Practices Branch
90	Year of Publication	1990
M76	Unique Title/Series Identifier	Title begins "Multiculturalism"

CODOC Structure:

Country Code:
CA - Canada

Codes for Level of Government:

1 - Federal
2 - Province/Territory
3 - Region/County
4 - Municipal

Provincial Codes for Canada:

AL - Alberta
BC - British Columbia
MA - Manitoba
NB - New Brunswick
NF - Newfoundland
NT - Northwest Territories
NV - Nova Scotia
ON - Ontario
PE - Prince Edward Island
PQ - Quebec
SA - Saskatchewan
YU - Yukon Territory

International Codes:

US1 - United States (federal government)
UN1-UN8 - United Nations and subordinate agencies
UN9 - Organizations part of the United Nations System; UN9 ES = UNESCO

Library of Congress Classification
Contains a list of documents outlining the various classes and subclasses of the Library of Congress classification system.