1. Canadian Government Documents
in the Post-Print Depository Era
Eamon Duffy
Liaison Librarian for Government Information
McGill University Library
CLA Montreal Network
9 May 2012

2. Depository Services Program
• Established in 1927 as a partnership between
libraries and the federal government
• In the 1990s began collecting and hosting
electronic documents

3. R.I.P. DSP?
• 2012 Federal Budget cuts
• Depository program will be exclusively
electronic beginning in 2014
• Government of Canada Publications Catalogue
• Canadian Government Publications on the
Web (Carleton University)

4. Who will safeguard public documents?
• The government says the DSP will continue
providing access to electronic publications.
• Can we trust them?
• The DSP exists as a matter of policy, not law. It
could be cancelled by the government at any
time.
• The government is currently cutting funding to
federal libraries and LAC.

5. Examples from other governments
• Québec
– BAnQ’s Publications numériques du Québec
(collection gouvernementale)
– Permanently archived with permanent links.
– Extremely thorough – a very high percentage of all
electronic publications are collected and
preserved.
– Vulnerable because publications are stored in one
place.

6. LOCKSS-USDOCS
• Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe
• A distributed network of identical copies of
electronic government documents – an online
version of the print depository program.
• Protection against server outages, disasters,
program cancelation, and document
tampering or removal.

9. What will we do in Canada?
• CLA Government Information Network
meeting in Ottawa

10. Questions?
eamon.duffy@mcgill.ca