While the University Library became a Canadian Depository in 1927, the library began collecting Canadian government documents in the later nineteenth century and has a research collection of significant value. The collection is well represented in the areas of Agriculture, Education, Environment, Health, Natural Resources, and Transportation. Legislative materials and major statistical series represent a large part of the collection. These publications originate from the Canadian parliament, departments, agencies, and Crown corporations. Click on the link for a comprehensive list of Canadian departments and agencies.
The collection contains material in a wide range of formats including CD, DVD, Internet documents, paper, and microfiche. The collection is cataloged in Dewey and integrated into the Main Stacks into its appropriate subject area. The exception is electronic sources that are cataloged using the Canadian documents number and housed in the Government Documents reference collection in room 200D. To limit your search to the Canadian depository collection use the advanced search option on the Library's Catalog page, and enter "Canada" as the corporate author. An example of this search would be to use "Canada" as corporate author and "education" as subject connected by the "AND" Boolean operator. The result would include all Canadian documents cataloged with the subject heading, education.
The University of Illinois has an extensive collection of British government publications. Parliamentary papers contain public bills, reports from committees and commissions, accounts, and command papers. For more information about Parliament in Great Britain, please refer to An Introduction to Parliament.
Depending on the time period of your research, it may be necessary to use paper copy (original or reprint), microfilm, or microfiche. In both paper and microfilm copies, the Sessional Papers are arranged chronologically by session years. In many cases, the library owns the same materials in more than one format. Older (pre-1979/80) Sessional Papers are not cataloged, but are available in the D and E ranges in the 5-West section of the Main Library stacks. Since finding these materials at the UIUC library can be a multistage process, please consult a librarian if you need any help locating materials for your research.
Parliamentary publications from the 1979/1980 session and later are available on microfiche and are filed in numerical order by session and series. The Government Documents Library keeps parliamentary papers from the 1993/94 session to the present, and earlier sessions can be found in the microfilm collection in Newspaper, History and Philosophy Library. Parliamentary papers from the 1978/1979 session and previous sessions are available in bound volumes and are located in the D and E ranges in the 5-West section of the Main Library stacks. An index is shelved as the last volume for each session, and can be used to locate a particular paper within the session. The parliamentary papers from the 1978/1970 session and earlier are not cataloged, and have no call number. The volumes are shelved according to session and subject.
University LibraryFor comments on this page contact: Government Documents Library
Last modified by: Leo Dion on 2/6/09