Legal Research

Digitization of Older Canadian Parliamentary Publications

By Michel-Adrien Sheppard

At lunch, I attended a round table organized by the National Capital Association of Law Libraries that took place at the University of Ottawa.

One of the more interesting announcements concerned the ongoing digitization of older publications relating to the activities of the Parliament of Canada.

According to the person from Library and Archives Canada who was present, the following material is now digitized:

• Journals of the House of Commons and Senate for 1901-1954
• Committee proceedings and evidence for 1901-1934
• Public Accounts and Estimates for 1867-1993

The material is available on the site of the Internet Archive.

Debates for the House of Commons for the period 1901-1993 are in the process of being digitized.

Library and Archives Canada has already digitized the full collection of the Canada Gazette going back to 1841.

For an interesting overview of who has digitized which Canadian parliamentary publications, people may want to read the March 2009 document entitled Working Paper: Digitization of Publications relating to the Parliament of Canada on the parliamentary website.

The working paper looks at the digitization of bills, committee reports, Hansard debates, journals of the House and Senate, Order and Notice Papers, Orders of Business, progress of legislation, statutes and regulations and orders-in-council, the Canada Gazette, commissions of inquiry and sessional papers:

“The original aim of this Working Paper was to provide information for the development of a Digital Strategy for the Library of Parliament. However so much interesting and little-known material emerged in the course of discussion and research that the authors felt that the findings would be of general interest and could serve as a basis for corrections and further information. ”

“The aim of the Working Paper (begun in September 2008) is to provide an overview of:

• which published papers relating to the operations of Parliament have been digitized;
• by which organization;
• where the digitized works are housed;
• who is permitted access &
• plans for future digitization. “

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 25, 2009 (boomark / email).