Book on Government Information in Canada Wins America Library Association Award

The 2019 University of Alberta Press book entitled Government Information in Canada has won the 2021 Margaret T. Lane / Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award.

There is a downloadable open access version available.

The Award is handed out every year by the Government Documents Round Table, which is part of the American Library Association:

"Canadian Government Information Systems mirror many of the federal, state, and local systems in the Unites States, yet publications dedicated to librarianship of Canadian government information are surprisingly rare.  While reviewing literature on government information reference services, it was found that the most recently published book on the subject was nearly forty years old.  Thankfully, Government Information in Canada: Access and Stewardship was published in 2019.  Wakaruk and Li have brought together chapters from various sources and authors to fill this gap."

The editors are Amanda Wakaruk (University of Alberta) and Sam-chin Li (University of Toronto).

They explain that the book:

• bridges a decade-long literature gap for Canadian government information since the publication of Olga Bishop’s Canadian Official Publications,
• aims to document both the current state of government information in Canada and the 'state of the discipline' of government information librarianship from a practitioner’s perspective,
• provides both an overview of what has changed in the government information ecosystem and highlights evolving strategies for continued access to these important resources.

Table of contents:

I Historical Overviews
1 Government Publication Deposit Programs: The Canadian Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Landscapes
Graeme Campbell, Michelle Lake, and Catherine McGoveran
2 Official Publications and Select Digital Library Collections at Library and Archives Canada, 1923 to the Present
Tom J. Smyth
3 Parliamentary Information in Canada: Form and Function
Talia Chung and Maureen Martyn
4 Commissions and Tribunals
Caron Rollins

II Provincial Landscape
5 Alberta Government Publishing
Dani J. Pahulje
6 Saskatchewan Government Publications Deposit in the Legislative Library
Gregory Salmers
7 Inside Track: Challenges of Collecting, Accessing, and Preserving Ontario Government Publications
Sandra Craig and Martha Murphy
8 Digitization of Government Publications: A Review of the Ontario Digitization Initiative
Carol Perry, Brian Tobin, and Sam-chin Li

III Looking Forward: Collaborative Stewardship
9 GALLOP Portal: Making Government Publications in Legislative Libraries Findable
Peter Ellinger
10 The Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network: A Collective Response to a National Crisis
Amanda Wakaruk and Steve Marks
11 Web Harvesting and Reporting Fugitive Government Materials: Collaborative Stewardship of At-Risk Documents
Susan Paterson, Nicholas Worby, and Darlene Fichter