Big news for those who love trawling through and reading government documents (you know who you are!), as an interesting new initiative was announced this week. From the press release:
The Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC) is proud to announce the release of its unique pan-Canadian bilingual government and legislative publications portal known as GALLOPP (Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications Portal) / PPGPE (Portail des publications gouvernementales et parlementaires électroniques). It promises to become a vital resource for Canadian libraries seeking the electronic publications of Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments and legislatures.
The result of collaboration between provincial and territorial legislative libraries from across Canada and the federal government’s Depository Services Program (DSP), the portal provides one-stop access to over 320,000 electronic provincial, territorial and federal government publications and legislative materials dating back to 1995.
Its simple and easy-to-use English and French interface allows users to search for documents by keyword or full-text and then link to the electronic copies of the materials hosted by the collecting library. Results can be cross-jurisdictional or limited by jurisdiction or date.
The portal is a unique resource bringing together for the first time the significant government document repositories that have been built by individual legislative libraries and the DSP.
New documents will be added regularly to GALLOPP. A detailed scope note on the site provides an up-to-date description of the portal’s content.
The portal is available at no charge and is accessible on the APLIC site at http://www.aplic-abpac.ca/aplic_home.html .
For further information please contact Yvonne Earle, APLIC President, at Yearle@Assembly.Nu.Ca or Vicki Whitmell, APLIC Vice President, at vw@ola.org
By “simple and easy-to-use interface” read “rather utilitarian”, but if you use the advanced search feature, it offers a more nuanced set of tools that offer access to what is a truly remarkable wealth of information – all free and open-access. As the old phrase goes – information wants to be free. This is a great step in that direction – especially from libraries that are not typically accessible to the public.