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Historical Debates now available online

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Great news from the Parliament of Canada today. The staff there have just launched a new website: “dedicated to the reconstituted debates of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada. In the early years of the new Dominion, the only account of parliamentary debates was to be found in newspaper reports. These were saved […]

Library Journal’s Notable Government Documents for 2009

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Library Journal has published their annual selection on the most pertinent government documents of the past year. Important issues included: Digitization – “Google launched a collaborative project to scan every U.S. government document held by the libraries of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. At the project’s end, the full text of […]

Social Media; Anti-Spam Laws; Federal Debt: New from PIRS

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

MPs and Senators study, debate and vote on a variety of issues and most of them wind up impacting most of us.  Ever wondered how they do their research?  As outlined in our entry of March 22, the Parliamentary Information and Research Service (PIRS)  has researchers on staff who “obtain and analyze material, and write…research […]

US Freedom of Information Act Documents

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Need to look at US government documents that don’t seem to be publicly available?  All may not be lost!  Thanks to the tireless efforts of journalists, researchers, and average citizens thousands of documents that would otherwise remain closed to public scrutiny are made available each year through Freedom of  Information Act (FOIA)  requests.  Even better:  […]

Search the US Federal Register

Friday, September 4th, 2009

“The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States. In it, you’ll find any kind of proposal, notification, or solicitation for data that a federal agency puts out.”  It includes Presidential documents – including Executive Orders; current and proposed Rules & Regulations; and Notices. The Register is currently available […]

US Presidential Documents

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Back in January 2009, the weekly compilation of US Presidential Documents morphed into a daily compilation.  It’s available from GPO access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/presdocs/index.html.  The current database includes all materials from the weekly compilation dating back to 1993. “It includes such material as: Proclamations Executive orders Speeches Press conferences Communications to Congress and Federal agencies Statements […]

Canada Gazette – Digitization project

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

This isn’t exactly news, since this project began in 2007, but it was news to me!  According to a statement on the Gazette website “the Canada Gazette Directorate is working in partnership with LAC to digitize all issues dating from 1841 to 1997, so as to make them accessible to the public.” The project is […]

GPO Access Content Migration

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

GPO Access is in the process of moving information into a new database: Federal Digital System (FDsys).  Some collections are no longer available in GPO Access, one is available  in both and the rest are set to be moved into FDsys by the end of 2009. According to the GPO FDsys “is an advanced digital […]

2008 Employment Equity Act Annual Report released

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

 The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Labour, today tabled the 21st Annual Report on the Employment Equity Act in the House of Commons.  “The report examines the hiring, retention and promotion of the four groups designated under the legislation: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities. The findings in the report, […]

BC – Parliamentary Journals 1851 – 1991

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Our sources tell us that the Legislative Assembly of BC is in the midst of testing an interface for the newly digitized parliamentary Journals from 1851 – 1991.  It’s live right now and you can search within all the volumes, browse the indexes & appendices or scroll through the individual volumes.  Note, from 1872 – […]

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