Government Information
Canada
United Kingdom
United States
Other Countries
International Organizations (IGOs)
Non-government Organizations (NGOs)
HELP With Citing/Finding Government Documents
Collections
- The University of Lethbridge Library collects government laws, regulations, reports, and departmental documents - search the Library catalogue to locate documents in print and/or links to electronic versions of these documents.
- Full-text access to various types of government documents is also available through the Government of Canada Publications website.
Indexes/Databases
- The Canadian Research Index (Microlog) provides information on documents from various levels of government and related organizations, users can then either search in the Library catalogue or access documents in fiche format from the University of Lethbridge Library's Microlog Fiche Collection (includes documents from all provincial governments 1979-present and federal documents published from 1979 to 1986).
- Early Canadiana Online is a full-text database of early source materials such as Early Official Publications (1867-1900).
- The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) provides access to federal, provincial and territorial statutes and court decisions.
- For Canadian socio-economic statistical information try:
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Federal Government
General
Legislation/Parliament
Statistics
Business
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Alberta Provincial Government
Other Provincial Governments
Municipal Government
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General
Legislation/Parliament
Statistics
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General
Legislation/Congress
Statistics
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United Nations
European Union
Other Organizations
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NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are private non-profit organizations that focus on government related topics such as agriculture, the status of women, economic indicators, etc.
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Citing Government Documents
General Search Strategies
- If you have the title, name of the author, or government publication call number (not publication number), then try the Library Catalogue and search by: Title (e.g., Hansard), Author (e.g., Health Canada), or Call Number (→ CODOC (Government Documents) → e.g., CA1 CS 62 001).
- If you have a subject or topic in mind, then search the Library Catalogue by using Advanced Keyword with the Location information changed to “UofL Government Documents"
- Consult the specific websites listed above to link directly to documents and/or search the recommended Indexes/Databases for information related to your topic.
- Consult the World Wide Web – many government publications (summaries or full-text) are freely available on the web.
Questions to Ask Yourself
- Which government department would deal with a question or problem like this? [Identify the likely department first and then use the "Search" function on the department's home page to locate specific topics of interest.]
- Is this an "official" government website? [There is no fool-proof way to know how "official" a website is but government departments do often have a standardized domain name such as ".gov" or ".gc.ca" in their Internet address - you can try limiting your topic/subject based web searches to these domains in order to retrieve only government websites.]
- Would government sources be a good place to find statistics? [Whenever you locate useful statistics, check the citation at the bottom of the table to identify the source in order to extend your research further.] What can I do to locate specific documents when I have found "incomplete" citations? [Be prepared for many ambiguous citations when dealing with governmental information. Sometimes the best approach is to search a related index/database by keyword for the bits of information that you do have (e.g., "Chapter A-2" or "Bulletin 1425-19") which can often lead you either directly to the specific document in question or something that will at least make a reference to the full title of the document. Often "Statistics Canada" will be the only citation given and then the challenge is to search for something like: "Statistics Canada" and "_ _" (with " _ _ " being the topic of interest) in order to locate the specific source of your information.]
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Content Revised: April 30, 2013
