PRESENTATION NOTES
Plenary Session: Imagining a 21st Century Digital Government Information Library 
James Jacobs, US Government Librarian, Stanford University
James called attention to the urgent need to build a digital government information library that connects the public with localities, states, provinces and countries as we face global crises. He explored and imagined the library for which we should strive toward as well as consider the hurdles to making this a reality.
Information Bootcamp 
Melissa Fraser-Arnott, Library of Parliament. Co-Presenters: Janet Bennett, Library of Parliament, Kirsten Clement, Library of Parliament 
​An introduction to Canadian parliamentary information resources for library workers. 
Going Mad with “Power Platform” 
David Cumming, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
David focused on the value of Microsoft’s Power Platform, specifically PowerBI, for using familiar information in the middle of a pandemic.
Creating a Search Portal for BC Government Publications
Louise Brittain Boisvert, Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
This session was an overview of the BC Legislative Library's systems team’s implementation of a full-text search discovery platform for its online BC Government Publications collection using VuFind. 
Crowdsourcing Metadata for a Government Information Collection: Canadian Think Tank on Scholars Portal Book Platform
Ravit H David, University of Toronto
We can all think of at least one government information collection that we wish we could make available online. We have the PDFs but we don't have enough metadata to go with. We don't have a nice home for these PDFs. What can we do about it? Using the Canadian Think Tank collection as a use case, this short talk discussed workflows for crowdsourcing metadata and some innovative methods to extract metadata from PDFs in order to make more government content available to our stakeholders.  
Updates from the Ontario Legislative Library
Julie Anderson, Yasuko Enosawa and Sandra Craig, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Updates on the Ontario Legislative Library's ISBN/ISSN service, Ontario Government Publication Monthly Checklist service, and the use of broad subject headings.
Old News: Delving into Legislative History with Ontario Scrapbook Hansard 
Emily Dix, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario has digitized its Scrapbook Hansard collection and will soon make it publicly available online. This presentation introduced Scrapbook Hansard and the transition to a digitized collection.
Collecting Her-Stories during the Pandemic
Yoo Young Lee, Roxanne Lafleur and Satya Miller, University of Ottawa
As a home to the Women’s Archives, the University of Ottawa Library is working on a small scale pilot project to collect her-stories during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The session introduced the need for this pilot project, how and what tools were used to create the site, and how this born-digital material was preserved and archived and where users can access her-stories online.
When Online Instruction is no Longer Just an Option: the Reality of Creating Reusable Government Information Videos During the Pandemic
Rebekah Glendinning and Sam-chin Li, University of Toronto
What happens when a two-hour, content heavy, library instruction workshop that covers all levels of government information needs to be taught online during the pandemic? You take the opportunity to create 18 reusable instructional government information videos over the span of a few weeks, of course! This presentation considered the creative process, the decisions made, and the results of the challenging, stressful, yet rewarding experience creating instructional government information videos.
Immediate Action for Information Rescue: How We Learned More Than We Wanted about COVID-19 through Web Archiving 
Tom Smythe, Library and Archives Canada
More than ever before, web archiving has emerged internationally as a rapid response means of documenting a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that web archiving is one of the few immediate actions information professionals may take to preserve a fulsome historical timeline and primary resources on an extended crisis. This talk delved briefly into Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) project on COVID-19, how its events-based web archival curation methodology has evolved, and current progress. 
Freedom of Information Laws and the Academy: Where are We at in 2020? 
Mark Weiler, Wilfred Laurier University
An update on several issues about the use of freedom of information (FOI) laws for academic research in Canada, including barriers in FOI laws for disabled researchers, FOI activity levels at the federal level, recent publications that use FOI, and an emerging research centre for FOI in Canada.
 
MLA Papers Archives at the Legislative Library of British Columbia 
Suher Zaher-Mazawi, Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
The personal papers and records of politicians, and those related to their constituencies, are challenging to track. They are not considered government records, and therefore do not fall under government recordkeeping and information governance policies.  In 2017, the Legislative Library of British Columbia recognized the archival value of records created and received by Members of the Legislative Assembly. As a result, the MLA Papers Archives was established, and we started acquiring personal papers and constituency records of elected Members who served in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. In this presentation, we will share perspectives on the process of starting such an archives, our successes so far, and the challenges we are currently facing. We will also address our strategy to move forward in consolidating and institutionalizing this project.
The Plight of Government Bookstores/Print Distribution: a Nova Scotia Example 
David McDonald, Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is doing away with its government bookstore in April 2021, without anything to replace it. Citizens will not be able to access print resources from a single source. Is this development short-sighted or is it a necessary response to a new reality? 
Partnering with the City of Saskatoon for Better Access to Municipal Data 
Sarah Rutley, University of Saskatchewan
In 2019, the University of Saskatchewan and the City of Saskatoon launched the Research Junction partnership - an initiative that facilitates collaborative USask-City research projects addressing urban issues relevant to Saskatoon communities. One pillar of this initiative is a data sharing agreement, developed by the University Library in partnership with City staff, that provides USask researchers access to previously undiscoverable City data. This session discussed the partnership, the development and implementation of the data agreement, and challenges and opportunities along the way.