Now, more than ever, you can access print publications online. The trick is finding them. So, our reference specialists at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) offer the following tips to help you discover published works that are just a click away!
Library Search
Get started with our Library Search tool. Just follow these easy steps to find Canadian published materials digitized by LAC and other libraries across the country.
- Go the Library Advanced Search screen.
- Select the Title Keyword search option and enter keywords from the title of a book that interests you.
- Search in: Canadian Libraries.
- From the Format drop–down menu, select Online.
- Click the Submit button. This will open a new page with your search results.
- Select any relevant search result to access the full record with the description of the book.
- Click on the link in the description to access the digitized version of the book.
Early Canadiana Online
Our reference specialists recommend the Early Canadiana Online (ECO) [www.eco.canadiana.ca/?usrlang=en] digital library as the go-to source for 19th century published material. Offering a vast online collection, ECO not only lets you search for specific works, but it also allows full-text searching. Some of the digitized content in ECO is only available to subscribing institutions, so ask your local library.
Here are a few tips for searching the ECO collection:
- Use the Advanced Search screen to narrow your search.
- To find specific titles, select the title option from the Search in drop-down menu.
- From the Find documents matching drop-down menu, select the option all terms in close proximity when searching the full-text of the digital library. This ensures that your search terms occur close together, not on separate pages of the full document.
Our next post on How to Find Digitized Publications will cover the following sources:
- Internet Archive [http://www.archive.org/]
- Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec[http://www.banq.qc.ca/collections/collection_numerique/index.html?language_id=1]
- Our Roots: Canada’s Local Histories Online [http://www.ourroots.ca/]
- Peel’s Prairie Provinces [www.peel.library.ualberta.ca/index.html]
Also, stay tuned to find out about some regional digitization initiatives that provide access to provincial and local materials.
Do you have any sources you like to use? If so, share them with us!
Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!
Library and Archives Canada Blog 
LAC has some great resources and is a valuable source of Canadian history but ordering anything is a terrible experience that simply doesn’t work. I have tried to order records twice now and each time LAC has either lost the order or double billed me not to mention it takes a very long time to receive anything. customer enquieries are never answered without making multiple attempts. Fix that problem and you will have many happy fans and may actually make a profit or at least increase your revenue.
Somebody call me and tell me what hapened to my order!
Thank you for your comments; we regret to hear about your experience. We have forwarded your comments and information to the appropriate division and someone will be calling you shortly to provide you with the material you ordered.
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