Government Documents are materials that are authored and published by government departments, government involved agencies, task forces and Royal Commissions. The Mount Library receives selected publications from various departments on the Federal and Provincial levels. Although we are not a full depository under the Depository Services Program, we select publications dealing with education, women's issues, tourism and any other publication that would contribute to the support of MSVU's particular curriculum.

Our library receives Government Information in print, on CD-ROM and online. We are participants in the Data Liberation Initiative through which we have access to downloadable Census and CANSIM and survey data files.

Where are they?

Print and CD Collection on campus

The Government Documents section of our library is located behind the journal stacks in the back left hand corner of the collection on the main floor of the Library. The majority of our collection of Government Documents are not listed in Novanet.

Statistics Canada surveys on CD-ROM and documentation acquired as part of the Data Liberation Initiative are filed with the print Stats Can collection in government documents. The material is labelled as DLI with a notice that the data are for academic and instructional use only.

Some government publications can be found in the Reference (non-circulating) or the circulating collection and be located in the Novanet catalog.

Among the current federal government serial publications of note:

• Canadian Economic Observer (journal stacks)

• Canadian Social Trends (journal stacks)

• Health Reports (FG CS 82-003)

• Juristat (FG CS 85-002)

• Chronic Diseases in Canada (FG H 12-27)

• Forum on Corrections Research (FG JS 83-2)

• Perspectives on Labour and Income (FG CS 75-001)

The Statistics Canada Website

• The Daily: Announcements of studies, current statistics and articles that are released on a variety of topics. This publication is no longer available in print.

• Selected CANSIM and Census data are available on the free database

• The site has a search engine that indexes all the publications. Please note: The search bar on the Statistics Canada home page currently searches publications from 2005 to the present. If you want statistics and commentary back to the 1980s use the "More results" link just above the search results. 

• From our homepage, go to Subject and Research Guides->Government Information

E-Stat

This database which contains both Census and CANSIM information, allows a certain amount of data manipulation and choice of variables.

Equinox Data Delivery Systems (formerly IDLS)

A database of downloadable Statistics Canada Survey files. This tool allows members to select variables in a given survey that are of interest. Some data tables (e.g. Census files) may be displayed using Beyond 20/20.

Types of Information

Statistics
The main sources of Canadian statistics are the Census data and CANSIM.

Census Information
Conducted every five years, the census offers a snapshot of Canadian society at a given time. Census data is useful for making observations the about the current status of Canadian society.

CANSIM( Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System)
CANSIM collects socio-economic data in TIME SERIES which are observations for a given subject at regular time intervals. These time series are put together into Matrices. This information is useful for observing trends in a given subject area.

Departmental Reports and Publications
Various government departments publish reports, studies, directories on aspects of their department. Our Library receives many publications from the Depository Services Program as well as directly from issuing departments.