Contemporary Canadian Govt. & Politics: A Research Guide: Finding Primary Sources

Finding Primary Source Material in Libraries:
Most libraries will have some primary source materials, but each library's special collections vary depending on their subject focus, region, specified users, donations, and collection development strategies. The following can help you find libraries with a special collection on your topic:

Directory of Special Collections of Research Value in Canadian Libraries. Library and Archives Canada.
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/collectionsp/index-e.html

Subject Collections: A Guide to Special Book Collections and Subject Emphases as Reported by University, College, Public, and Special Libraries and Museums in the United States and Canada. 7th ed. New York: Bowker, 1993. 2466 p.

NOTE: Primary source materials in library special collections may not all be included in the online library catalogue. Ask a Reference Librarian to be sure.

Searching by Subject:

See Finding and Evaluating Substantive Information, for general instructions on searching library catalogues. Once you know the subject headings to use for your topic you can add the sub-headings that limit the materials found to primary sources.

Some commonly used sub-headings for primary sources:

-- sources
-- personal narratives
-- correspondence
-- diaries
-- quotations
-- oratory
-- platforms
-- interviews

Use after a subject heading, e.g.[subject] -- sources:

Chretien, Jean, 1934- -- quotations
canada -- politics and government -- sources
canada -- politics and government -- 1945 - -- sources

TIP: Since there can be any number of date ranges added between the sub-headings, search for keywords combined from the subject heading and sub-headings in the subject field to see all items, or browse the subject heading list.

NOTE: There are also some subject headings for primary source material:

Speeches, addresses, etc., Canadian
Public opinion polls
Campaign literature

To find these materials for a specific person, party, etc., do an advanced subject search where you can combine both headings in your search:
e.g. subject: Liberal party of Canada and subject: campaign literature

Searching by Author:

Enter the government body or political organization as the author to find materials produced by these bodies, e.g.:

Liberal Party of Canada
Canada. Ministry of State for Multiculturalism
Canada. Parliament. Senate. Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce

TIP: Government bodies are entered with their jurisdiction first. If you don't know the exact format, use keywords in the Author field to find these, then use the full heading for a more precise search.

Searching by Keyword:

If you don't know the subject headings to use for your topic, start with keywords, ie. any words you can think of to describe what you are looking for. Combine keywords for the topic, jurisdiction, author, or possible subject headings. To make this more precise, enter the keywords in the fields in which you know they will occur, if any. To make sure to get more, use truncation to get the root keyword and any possible endings (e.g. election* to get election, elections, electioneering, etc.)

e.g. Canada in the author field and debates (no field specified)
election* (no specified field) and speeches in the subject field.
You may need to rethink your searches depending on the results and try searching in several ways.
 

Note: The exact way to do a keyword search in specific fields, truncation, etc. will differ depending on the online catalogue system used and may not be possible in some. Check the catalogue�s online help files before attempting advanced keyword searches.