Contact info

You can contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for GSWS (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) for assistance via email or via Ask a librarian.

Other relevant guides

• Canadian health care policy
• Cultural policy
• Economic Policy "epic" blog post on researching economic policy topics 
• Government resources
• GSWS 350 / GSWS 824 Public Policy for Women (Gender & Social Policy)
• Legal Information
  • Case Law - Particular Cases (Canada) (updated January 2020)
  • Canadian Abridgment Digest  (updated March 2021)
• Public Policy
  • See the section Policy Writing section of the Public Policy page for how to write a policy memo
• Urban Housing Policy

Research process

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected reference works

Encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks provide overviews, definitions and identify key authors and ideas.

• Encyclopedia of race and racism
• Handbook of Family Policy
• Handbook of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations
• International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
• International handbook on ageing and public policy
• Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy
• Routledge encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology
• Routledge Handbook of LGBTQIA Administration and Policy
• Routledge handbook of public policy
• Sage handbook of resistance
• Sage eReference

Catalogue Search for encyclopedias on "policies": (handbook OR encyclopedia) AND (policy OR policies)

Databases for journal articles, legal cases & government info

Searching the "Databases for a discipline" is a great strategy to view articles that have been written within the scholarly journals of that discipline.  For help, refer to the How to find journal articles, What is a scholarly journal?, and Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video 3:13 mins]

Journal and newspapers 

If full-text of article is not available from within the database, click on the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• Sociological Abstracts  Theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Social Sciences Full Text  Access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals
• Political Science Complete - Access to full-text political science articles
• Women's Studies International - for any issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
• CBCA Complete Canada's reference and current events - scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines
• Canadian Newsstream - Full text access to major Canadian daily newspapers (such as the Globe and Mail, National Post, The Gazette (Montreal), and Vancouver Sun) as well as small market newspapers and weeklies published in Canada. Full text for the local BC newspapers is limited, and if available, they may not be indexed cover-to-cover so try searching the internet for their online editions.
• Vancouver Public Library's British Columbia Index (2002 - ) Courier, WestEnder, Georgia Straight, etc.
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.

Legal & government

• Canadian Research Index  -  (1982-) Access to "all depository publications of research value issued by both the federal government and the ten provinces and three territories". Older reports are on Microlog fiche, which is very useful, as many are not available on government sites or in print in libraries

(Accessing Microlog fiche: The microfiche reports are housed on the 6th floor of the W.A.C. Bennett Library (Burnaby Campus).  There are microfiche readers that can make print copies from microfiche pages.  Jot down the report's title and Microlog number. Example:  1992's "Native women and aboriginal treaty rights: a discussion paper"  Microlog number: 92-04323)

Located on 6th floor: Microforms (Classified, Large Fiche | Newspapers/Journals | Small Cards | Small Fiche) | detailed map

• LegisInfo - Canadian federal government bills, including the text of various versions, press releases and backgrounders, legislative summaries from the Parliamentary Research Branch, speeches, votes, coming-into-force information
• Legislative Library of British Columbia Indexes Selective index to newspapers and magazines published in British Columbia
• CanLII: Canadian Legal Information Institute
  Canadian case law and statutes. Includes federal, provincial, and territorial material. Note: there is very limited secondary legal literature here, but this is growing. 
• Note the use of quotation marks (" ") around phrases and separate tabs for types of publications (cases, legislation, commentary)
• Examples. 
  • public transit
  • "public transit" AND "british columbia"
  • "public transit" AND "british columbia" AND (safe* OR assault* OR violen*)

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited by "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"

• identit* AND (communit* OR society) AND belong*
• "social relations" AND (belong* OR acceptance OR reject* OR exclusion OR exclud* OR visibil* OR invisibil*  OR marginal*)
  • results limited by selected subjects
• "open data"
• "open data" AND societ*
• (”public transit” OR bus OR buses OR skytrain* OR transport*) AND (safe* OR harass* OR assault* OR violen* OR abus* OR rape) AND (policy OR policies)
• (”public transit” OR bus OR buses OR skytrain* OR transport*) AND safe* AND (policy OR policies OR guideline* OR regulat* OR legislat*) AND (BC OR British Columbia OR vancouver)
• (health OR healthcare OR hospital* OR medicare) AND (policy OR policies OR guideline* OR regulat* OR legislat*)  AND (BC OR British Columbia OR vancouver)
• [YOUR TOPIC WORDS] AND (policy OR policies OR guideline* OR regulat* OR legislat*) AND (BC OR British Columbia OR vancouver)

Proper syntax for Boolean logic (words that allow you to combine concepts)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• Contested belonging : spaces, practices, biographies 
• Digital femininities : the gendered construction of cultural and political identities online 
• Dynamics of Modern Society
• Indigenous Invisibility in the City : Successful Resurgence and Community Development Hidden in Plain Sight
• Mobilities and neighbourhood belonging in cities and suburbs 
• Poststructural Policy Analysis A Guide to Practice 
• Poverty and social exclusion in the UK. Volume 2, The dimensions of disadvantage 
• Social beings, future belongings : reimagining the social
• The urban sociology reader 

Browse search

Choose: Browse tab, change "title" to "subject"

• Canada -- Social Policy
• City planning -- British Columbia
• Housing policy -- British Columbia -- Vancouver
• Policy, Health
• Public policy -- British Columbia
• Public safety -- British Columbia
• Public safety -- Canada

Government data, policies and other documents

Newspaper and journal may mention government reports. In addition to searching journal article databases, search:  Canadian Research Index (federal, provincial and municipal documents), Canada Commons (policy documents & reports),  and sources listed under the sections, Government data, policies and other documents, and Other relevant guides. In addition, it sometimes helps to search the internet using Google or other browser.

Open data

Library guide: Accessing geospatial data
 

Government of Canada Open Data Portal
Search by keyword and use the options on the right of the page to limit to geospatial data. There is an option to limit to shapefile (SHP) under File Format.

Selected open geospatial data sources

• Open Government Programs in Canada

British Columbia

DataBC - BC Open Data Catalogue, including spatial data. It also provide Web Map Services (WMS). Click on this link to get a search result of all B.C. Data Catalogue records with Public WMS available.

Hansard

Federal government. Parliament. Hansard (Debates)

British Columbia Government. Hansard (Debates)

Federal

Government of Canada Web Archive [NEW] 
- access to Canadian web content collected and preserved by Library and Archives Canada [Description from the website]

Use their basic search engine and use the filters to refine the search
Use their Advanced Search to search by keywords, phrase, limit by date or collection.

Currently has 4 collections: Covid-19, government of Canada, Royal Commissions, Truth and Reconciliation

Government of Canada

Look for the appropriate department(s) and government agencies, such as Health Canada, Justice Canada (Department of), etc. and then use their search engines for policies, laws & legislation.

Justice Laws Website - the online source of the consolidated Acts and regulations of Canada.  Generally updated every two weeks.

Library of Parliament - their research publications provide policy backgrounders for members of parliament

• Research publications - use this search engine and limit results by subject, publication type, date, etc.
  • Example search  
    • Subject: "Indigenous affairs", Publication type: "Background papers"

Statistics Canada

• Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics hub
• Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report, 7th edition
• Canadian Housing Survey
• Census (Main page)
• Subjects
  • Housing statistics

British Columbia

• Government of British Columbia - Source of information for BC
  • Policies, Procedures and Standards
  • Search: policy (limit results by themes, such as health, public safety and emergency services, gender equity in BC, housing and tenancy, etc)
  • Antiracism
• BC Public Statutes and Regulations
• BC Housing. Their Research Centre provides housing data
• CivicInfo BC - "an incorporated not-for-profit society with a membership that includes nearly all local governments in the province." 

Municipal related

• Local government websites - selected list of BC local (municipal) government websites from the Urban Studies guide. For a complete list see Local municipal government websites from the guide Finding Government Resources & Information
  • City of Vancouver, including its Open Data Catalogue  and Green Vancouver
  • City of Burnaby including Maps and Open Data
• Metro Vancouver  (also known as GVRD means Greater Vancouver Regional District) 
  "collaboratively plans for and delivers regional-scale services...drinking water, wastewater treatment and solid waste management"
  including their Harry Lash Library catalogue with internally-produced reports and historical materials
  • MV_Affordable_Housing_plan2019.pdf
• Union of BC Municipalities  provincial union for local governments, providing resources such as policy papers, including the extremely useful Local Government fact sheets "easy-to-read and easy-to-understand information on local government operations. Subjects include the role and powers of elected officials, taxation, planning process, policing, and bylaws"
  • Policy areas and Policy papers
  • (E.g. housing, policy documents and services, poverty reduction, etc.)

Citing government documents

• Government documents, Canadian -- APA style | MLA style | Chicago style

Internet Archive and Wayback Machine 

Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that offers permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages.

• About page
• Journal articles about Internet Archive in Google Scholar
• Journal articles about Wayback Machine in Google Scholar

Advanced Search - Wayback Machine

• Search: ("public transit") AND safety AND policy
• Search: transportation policy AND Canada
  • Limited to collections (Vancouver City Archives, Internet Archives), Subject: Canada, Media type: texts

Searching Google & Google Scholar

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "(__ OR__ )" around words with the same meaning (synonyms). "AND" is assumed by Google so you don't need to include it in your search strategy.

Google

Google's Advanced Search page

• ("public transit” OR bus OR skytrain OR transportation) (safety OR harassment OR assault)

Use intitle" to specify that word must be in the title, use site:ca to specify results must be from a Canadian website

• intitle:(bus OR skytrain) (safety OR harassment OR assault) site:.ca

Google Scholar database for journal articles (using the SFU Library link)

  Set up Google Scholar library links and button [i.e. "Get@SFU link" within Google Scholar]

• intitle:(bus OR skytrain OR transportation) intitle:(safety OR harassment OR assault)

Library guides

• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles.
• Library Catalogue search guide.
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them.

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.