Internet Resources for Canadian Publishers, Students, Parents, Booksellers and Researchers. Table of Contents
This list of websites which follow will provide surfers with timely information on Canadian publishing issues and markets. The focus is on information related to the industry, reasoning that the web would be a perfect place to make public the research, statistics and policies these organizations had created for their members. The Sites
General Resources Visit Places for Publishers (http://absolute-sway.com/pfp/). This site set out to do in a few weeks-locate web resources for publishers. The site is updated monthly and includes references to relevant articles, book fairs, bookstores, associations and much more. The developer has included a lot of Canadian information, and they have a monthly newsletter. If you are looking for industry statistics, the place to visit is Industry Canada's Strategis site (http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/engdoc/main.html). They have put together a host of resources for Canadian and foreign business people. The site includes industry profiles and statistics, as well as in-depth reports on issues of importance to each sector. The Publishing Sector area includes the following reports: Another source of Canadian publishing statistics is Statistics Canada: Canadian Dimensions: The People: Culture, leisure and travel (http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/People/cultur.htm). The information is from 1990-1994, and you've probably seen it in hard copy, but it may be useful. There is a report on Book Publishing in Canada (http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/ccsp/papers/BPiC.html) available at the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing (http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/ccsp/ccsp.html) at Simon Fraser. Most publishing related associations were filled with information about the association, or links and resources of interest only to their members. Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (http://www.bookwire.com/bisg/) offers a rich resource of information about American and International studies on publishing. Although most of the research is not available on-line, the summaries and contact information should allow you to decide which reports will be worth pursuing. There is also information on EDI, and general statistics on the US publishing industry. Citation (http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/ccsp/citation) Just launched last month as part of a Masters' project at Simon Fraser University, Citation is an extensive collection of Internet links developed specifically for Canadian publishers. Discovered too late to make the report, this is a must see. It's accessible from the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing home page. Publishers' Weekly (http://www.bookwire.com/pw/) has select reports, classified ads, bestseller lists, and other information available. For the most comprehensive lisiting of publishers on the Net, Publishers' Catalogues Home Page (http://www.lights.com/publisher/) is the spot. This site, developed by a company in Saskatoon, includes links to publishers around the world. For information about UK publishing the Book Industry Communication's Bookish Home Page (http://www.bic.org.uk/bic/) has some links of interest, but many dead ones. There is a lot of information on EDI in the booktrade. Finally, for a steady feed of news headlines from the world of publishing (magazines, information services, books), check out Yahoo's http://biz.yahoo.com/news/publishing.html. The information is updated throughout the day from Reuters, Business Wire, and PR Newswire. A search including "Canada publishing" turned up a few local references, but scanning the general information will be more fruitful. Educational Publishing There is a lot of education related material on the web, but most of it is intended for instructors, students or administrators. There are some good sites for learning about technology in education, and newsgroups for keeping up with what educators are talking about, but for market intelligence, there's not much. The few exceptions still don't compare with the print resources available and information from field staff. For lists of schools, colleges, and other education sites, Canadian Education on the Web (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~mpress/eduweb.html) is a great place to start, and the National Library of Canada has a list of Canadian Information By Subject (http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/caninfo/ecaninfo.htm). Some ministries of education have made a strong investment in their web sites. The Ontario Ministry of Education and Training (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca) is definitely worth bookmarking for anyone publishing for the Ontario education market. For detailed US education statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics' Statistics at a Glance page (http://www.ed.gov/NCES/indihome.html) has enough to overwhelm. The Canadian School market Yahoo Canada lists 13 Resources, 62 School Districts, 358 Schools and fourteen companies at http://www.yahoo.ca/Regional/Countries/Canada/Education/K_12/. Not surprisingly, most of these are intended for educators and students. The Canadian and US teachers federations turned up nothing of interest. Most of them explain the organization, and have links to other unions and associations. On the other hand, if you're curious about what teachers and students are doing with technology, SchoolNet (http://www.schoolnet.ca) is a great place to start. SchoolNet is a large site, and the offerings are of mixed quality and currency, so prepare yourself. Classroom Connect (http://www.classroom.net) is a commercial US site that addresses K-12 educators and administrators. It includes a teacher maintained archive of WWW sites organised by curriculum area and a database of teachers. The Product Showcase offers books and software for sale. One site worth checking out is CanGuide (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/canguide/). Here you'll find a searchable database of curriculum documents from across the country, as well as links to provincial curriculum information sites. Fill in the form with your search criteria, and see what comes up. Some documents are available on-line, others have to be ordered. This site is intended for educators, researchers and administrators. The information is not up-to-date (most recent documents from 1996), but the Research Officer in charge plans to have the database fully updated by the fall. In the meantime, the links to provincial sites offer access to current information from each provincial ministry. Two other databases using the same engine as CanGuide are: - ONTERIS (Ontario Education Resources Information System) curriculum and research material for Ontario (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/onteris) and;
Circular 14 a list of all the official texts in use in Ontario, as of Fall 1996 (http://onteris.oise.utoronto.ca/c14e). This site allows teachers to search the database and print out an order form complete with publisher information, ready to mail or fax.
For education related statistics, your best bet is the provincial ministry sites mentioned above. Statistics Canada has their 1994 report Canadian Dimensions: The People: Education available at http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/People/educat.htm., and a search for "education" at the StatsCan search page (http://www.statcan.ca/english/search/) will turn up more recent reports which can be ordered. The Council of Ministers of Education of Canada site (http://WWW.CMEC.CA/indexe.htm) includes press releases and the 1995 Report on Education in Canada. Post-Secondary Publishing Yahoo Canada lists 126 Community Colleges, 85 Universities, and three Organizations under Higher Education. University and College sites vary greatly - offering different info -some of them include full course calendars and faculty directories while others only contain information about a single faculty. Publications on the National Association of College Stores site include studies in margin and best prictices which may offer publishers some insights. Technology and Education The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC) (http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~amtec/) is worth checking out at least once if you are interested in developing or marketing digital product in the school or college market. The links and information provided will give some notion of the way teachers are thinking, and there are links to education and educational technology sites. You can subscribe to their listserve to stay up to date. Human Resources Canada's Office of Learning Technologies site (http://olt-bta.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca) offers conference information and some papers on on-line learning, but it's short on content. It may be worth checking out in a few months. For diverse articles on education and technology as well as conference listing and access to newsletters, check out EduCom (http://www.educom.edu). "Educom is a nonprofit consortium of higher education institutions that facilitates the introduction, use, and access to and management of information resources in teaching, learning, scholarship, and research." They publish a variety of print and electronic resources worth knowing about. Jump straight to the Publications page to explore them. A smaller site also focusing on education and technology is Syllabus Magazine's SyllabusWeb. Their News, Resources and Trends link offers current information on educational initiatives and Case Studies offers a more in-depth weekly story. The Association of Research Libraries (http://arl.cni.org/) includes a surprising amount of information on copyright and electronic delivery issues. Highlights include a detailed report for institutions considering signing electronic rights licenses, another report entitled Librarians and Publishers in the Scholarly Information Process (co-sponsored by the AAP), and details of a conference on Copyright in the Digital Age. Research and General Information The Yahoo news publishing page is probably the easiest and cheapest way to browse current publishing news, but a few other sites are worth mentioning. The Electric Library (http://www.elibrary.com) offers subscribers a searchable database of on-line documents culled from magazines, books, newspapers and TV and radio transcripts. Free trials are available, and searching is available to anyone. A search for "publishing Canada" turned up thirty documents. The site was developed for students, but it offers easy access to a broad range of information. NewsPage (http://www.newspage.com/) is a subscription on-line news service which covers the publishing industry, as well as most other news topics. You can browse headlines without joining, use their excellent search engine, and have a page customised to your interests. Basic membership is free. PointCast Canada (http://www.pointcast.ca/) is not a website, but rather an on-line service using "push technology". Download the free PointCast viewer, customise your profile, and receive daily updates on news, weather, stock quotations your horoscope, and more. You can select from a wide variety of channels, and track various industry news including publishing, software and education. Much of the publishing news covers newspapers and magazines, but book information appears now and again. PointCast is not for everyone-the ads can be distracting, and the information is more selective than other news services-but it is definitely worth checking out for an alternative to your morning glance at the headlines. Be careful though. I have had a lot of trouble with PointCast conflicting with my other network software. ( You can turn of the annoying screensaver function, and still use the viewer). Canoe (http://www.canoe.ca/) has links to many of the Sun Media and Maclean Hunter sites. The Financial Post, Macleans and others offer Canadian news. CopyrightOne of the most comprehensive and frequently updated copyright sites is Access Intellectual Property Law (http://www.intelproplaw.com). They maintain a great list of IP related mailing lists and newsgroups where you can pose your copyright questions, or answer someone else's. The site also has information on Multimedia Law, Internet Law, and Computer Law, as well as traditional IP areas. Although the site is American, many Canadian lawyers use it too. On-line Commerce The list of bookstores at Places for Publishers (http://absolute-sway.com/pfp/) includes a number of Canadian sites you'll recognize and may want to look at. Another large site is Book Stacks (http://www.books.com). BookZone (http://www.bookzone.com) focuses on small presses, while ReadersNdex (http://www.readersndex.com) partners with publishers and other booksellers to present publisher and author profiles, a limited catalogue of books and some reviews-nowhere near the breadth of Amazon.com, but an interesting model. For a completely different approach, look at The On-line Books Page(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html). Digital versions of over 3,000 public domain works in English are available from this site. A remarkable resource. Libraries Many canadian libraries have made their catalogues available on line, and Librarians have been involved in some fascinating Internet experiments, but the library sites I looked at had little of interest to publishers. The Canadian Library Association (http://www.cla.amlibs.ca/) has information on the association, their conference and publications. The American Library Association (http://www.ala.org/) has an interesting FAQ (http://www.ala.org/library/larcfaqs.html) including information on how to market to libraries and some statistics. Both sites have information on the annual conference, policies and links to library sites. U of T's Faculty of Information Studies (http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/) has a list of resources which may be worth checking if you are looking for anything to do with information management.
Appendix
General Publishing Resources Places for Publishers
http://absolute-sway.com/pfp/
If you do nothing else, visit this site. Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing
http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/ccsp/ccsp.html
Learn about Simon Fraser's publishing program. Yahoo's Publishing News
http://biz.yahoo.com/news/publishing.html
A steady feed of news headlines from the world of publishing (magazines, information services, books) updated throughout the day from Reuters, Business Wire, and PR Newswire. Publishers' Weekly
http://www.bookwire.com/pw/
Bestseller lists, selected articles, classified ads, and more. PubNet
http://www.pubnet.org/
Information on the ABA's electronic commerce server. SimbaNet
http://www.simbanet.com/
This is a rich resource of information on many issues critical to the industry. Although the site is intended to sell subscriptions and reports, the free information provided is timely and valuable. Most of the info is for the US, but the events covered certainly impact CPC members. To zero in on your area, click the Sources link to jump directly to http://www2.simbanet.com/simba/sources/sources.html. Books AtoZ
http://www.booksatoz.com/
Lots of links related to books and book production. Publishers' Catalogues Home Page
http://www.lights.com/publisher/
A comprehensive listing of publisher WWW sites around the world. Publishing for Vertical Markets
http://www.mpiweb.com/Publish.html
A collection of reports from a US based consulting group. Possibly of interest to medical and college publishers. Frankfurt Bookfair
http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/
Those considering a trip to Frankfurt will find some of the information they need. Globetrotting publishers can find a list of other international book fairs at: http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/e/int-abt-buchmessen97.html Publishing Associations Canadian Booksellers Association
http://www.cbabook.org
The CBA site has dates and contact info for events, links to Canadian bookstore sites and details of the June convention. Association of Canadian Publishers
http://www.canbook.org
This site provides an overview of the association and information on its committees and publications. The publications are not available online. Canadian Author's Association
http://www.islandnet.com/~caa/
This concise site is aimed at Canadian authors. It provides information about the association and links (http://www.islandnet.com/~caa/links.html) to writing, research and publishing sites. Editors' Association of Canada
http://www.web.net/eac-acr/welcome.htm
Aimed at editors and those who want to be editors. Also information on hiring editors, professional standards, and professional development. Canadian Magazine Publishers Association
http://www.cmpa.ca/
Provides an extensive listing of Canadian magazines, possibly of use to those considering advertising options. Also includes a list of distributors in Canada and the US, professional development activities and publications. Association of American Publishers
http://www.publishers.org/
This large site explains and promotes the association, but offers little on-line information for CPC members. Press releases to do with the organisation or industry can be found at http://www.publishers.org/news/index.html. Publishers' Marketing Association
http://www.pma-online.org/
This site is of interest to small publishers and authors interested in self-publishing. Educational Publishing lists of schools, colleges, and other education sites:
Canadian Information By Subject
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/caninfo/ecaninfo.htm Ontario Ministry of Education and Training
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca
Definitely worth bookmarking for anyone publishing for the Ontario Education market. Loads of information for School and College publishers, including contact lists, curriculum documents and up-to-date details on Circular 14-including a searchable database of approved texts. Links to information on distance education, school and college sites. Statistics at a Glance
http://www.ed.gov/NCES/imdihome.asp
For detailed US education statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics
School CanGuide Home Page
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/canguide/
This page offers a searchable database of curriculum resources from across the country, as well as links to many provincial curriculum information sites. A wealth of information for school editorial and marketing. SchoolNet
http://www.schoolnet.ca
Canadian recources for teachers and students. ONTERIS (Ontario Education Resources Information System)
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/onteris
Curriculum and research material for Ontario Circular 14
http://onteris.oise.utoronto.ca/c14e
A list of all the official texts in use in Ontario, as of Fall 1996. This site allows teachers to search the database and print out an order form compete with publisher information, ready to mail or fax. The Council of Ministers of Education of Canada
http://WWW.CMEC.CA/indexe.htm
Includes press releases and the 1995 Report on Education in Canada. Canadian Materials Review
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/cm
Developed by the Manitoba Library Association, this site includes reviews of books and WWW sites of interest to the K-Adult educational market. A keyword search (publisher, author, title) of the site can turn up reviews of published titles. Classroom Connect
http://www.classroom.net
This commercial US site addresses K-12 educators and administrators. It includes a teacher maintained archive of WWW sites organised by curriculum area and a database of teachers. The Product Showcase offers books and software for sale. An interesting approach to community building. Curriculum Web
http://www.curriculumweb.org
Another site for K-12 educators, containing curriculum related resources for US teachers. Post-Secondary Scholarly Societies Project
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/
This page, sponsored by the University of Waterloo, offers links to scholary societies around the world. Post-Secondary Associations Canadian Association of University Teachers
http://www.caut.ca/
Information on lobbying activities of the association including their stance on copyright. Monthly bulletin. Association of Canadian Community Colleges
http://www.accc.ca/eng/
Of limited interest to publishers. There are a number of publications available at http://www.accc.ca/eng/pub/ including reports on the effect of technology on education. Canadian Association of Distance Education
http://www.cade-aced.ca/
Includes a listserve, a list of publications and links to related sites. The links (http://www.cade-aced.ca/english/edulinks.html) may be of interest to those investigating the distance learning opportunities. National Association of College Stores
http://www.nacs.org/
This US site includes information on seminars and statistics relevant to bookstore managers. Studies of margin and best practices offer some useful insight for college publishers. Canadian conferences dates and contacts are included in the calendar of events: http://www.nacs.org/calendar/calendar.html Technology in Education Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC)
http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~amtec/
Worth checking out at least once if you're interested in developing or marketing digital product in the school or college market. EduCom
http://www.educom.edu
Diverse articles on education and technology as well as conference listings and access to newsletters. SyllabusWeb
http://www.syllabus.com
Hosted by Syllabus Magazine. Their News, Resources and Trends link offers current information on educational initiatives and Case Studies offers an in-depth weekly story. Office of Learning Technologies
http://olt-bta.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca
Sponsored by Human Resources Canada, this site offers conference information and some papers on on-line learning. A little short on content, but it looks ready to grow.
Research and Information sites The Electric Library
http://www.elibrary.com
This site offers subscribers a searchable database of on-line documents culled from magazines, books, newspapers and TV and radio transcripts. Free trials are available, and searching is available to anyone. NewsPage
http://www.newspage.com/
This subscription on-line news service covers the publishing industry, as well as most other news areas. You can browse headlines without joining, use their excellent search engine, and have a page customised to your interests. Certain membership levels are free. PointCast Canada
http://www.pointcast.ca/
This is not a website, but rather an on-line service using "push technology". Download the free PointCast viewer, customise your profile, and receive daily updates on news, weather, stock quotations your horoscope, and more. Canoe
http://www.canoe.ca/
Links to MacLean's, Financial Post, the Sun newspapers and many more. Lots of Canadian news and information. Canadian Corporate NewsNet
http://www.cdn-news.com/
Up-to-date news releases on Canadian companies searchable by name, stock symbol or key word. The Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com
A little less substantial than the newspaper. Copyright Canadian Copyright Law
http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/copyrightlaw/
Here you'll find news on C-32, Frequently Asked Questions, and the opportunity to contact lawyer Lesley Ellen Harris, the author of Canadian Copyright Law. Copyright Law In Canada - ©anadian ©opyright ©entre
http://www.perlaw.ca/
Sponsored by a law firm, this site links to statutes and treaties related to copyright I Canada. BILL C-32
http://www.pch.gc.ca/wn-qdn/c32/c-32toce.html
Canadian Heritage hosts this copy of bill C-32. Although there is also a What's New link, when I tried to check it out, the link was dead. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office
http://cipo.gc.ca
The site covers all areas of intellectual property, but is very slim on useful copyright information. The CIPO Guide to Copyrights is available on-line. AMTEC Copyright Resources
http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~amtec/copyrig.html
The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada has some great copyright links relevant to traditional and electronic publishing. Access Intellectual Property Law
http://access-iplaw.com
One of the most comprehensive and frequently updated copyright sites. They maintain a great list of IP related mailing lists and newsgroups where you can pose your copyright questions, or answer someone else's. The Copyright Website
http://www.benedict.com/
This is a large, and surprisingly entertaining, US site on copyright. Much of the focus is on film and recording. Ivan Hoffman, Attorney at Law
http://home.earthlink.net/~ivanlove/
Sponsored by a US lawyer, the site has a variety of articles pertaining to copyright, distribution rights, international book deals and revision rights. There is also a downloadable version of his book: Internet Law Simplified. Kinko's
http://www.kinkos.com/
There's not much of interest on the Kinko's site, but those curious about their official line on copyright may check out: http://www.kinkos.com/products/services/copyright-acct Professional Canadian Medical Association
http://www.cma.ca
This is a large site with information aimed at Canadian medical practitioners. On-line publications, policy papers, links to medical WWW sites, and faculties of medicine at Canadian universities are all included. For publishers, the listing of conferences and events (http://www.cma.ca/cme/index.html) will be of interest. Virtual Canadian Law Library
http://www.droit.umontreal.ca/doc/biblio/en/index.html
Legal publishers will find this list of law related links useful. Includes access to on-line Hansard for many provinces, law firm WWW sites, conferences, law libraries and more. New Media Strategis
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/engdoc/main.html
Industry Canada has put together a host of resources for Canadian and foreign business people. The site includes industry profiles and statistics, as well as in depth reports on issues of importance to each sector. The Publishing sector area includes the following reports: MultiMediator
http://www.multimediator.com/
This Canadian site offers a drectory of multimedia developers and lots of tips on developing your own interactive resources. GVU's WWW User Survey
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/
No Canadian information, but these surveys of WWW usage are worth checking out if you are planning on developing web resources. CyberAtlas
http://www.cyberatlas.com/
Another source of on-line demgraphics and statistics on WWW usage. Bookselling Amazon.Com
http://www.amazon.com
If you still haven't checked out Amazon, don't delay. The intensive cross referencing, book reviews, discounts, opportunity for users to add content, and comprehensive selection, definitely make it the bookselling site to beat. Literascape (Duthie Books)
http://www.literascape.com/
This on-line bookstore includes a searchable on-line catalogue, a literary review (including ads from publishers) and information about the companies various services.
The On-line Books Page
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html
Digital versions of over 3,000 public domain works in English are available from this site. A remarkable resource. The Internet Book Fair
http://www.bookfair.com/
The site has not been updated since the summer of `96, but there are still a few good links. The site includes lists of publishers and booksellers selling on the web. Publishers represented are mostly small presses. ReadersNdex
http://www.readersndex.com.
This on-line bookstore partners with publishers and other booksellers to present publisher and author profiles, a limited catalogue of books and some reviews. . Bonder Bookstore
http://www.bonder.com
This Montreal Bookseller offers to order any book in print. BookZone
http://www.bookzone.com/
Focuses on small presses. Bookserve
http://www.bookserve.com
This is a large, and not so up-to-date on-line bookstore. Limited information on titles and few titles posted this year. Book Stacks
http://www.books.com
This is another large, on-line bookstore. The site includes discussion forums, and offers a partner program so anyone can earn 8% commission on book sales. Borders on the Web
http://www.borders.com/i
Includes a list of stores across the US, company history, reviews, and in-store events. Baker & Taylor
http://www.baker-taylor.com
This American wholesaler has a large site with a searchable catalogue, information on their lawsuit(s), convention calendars, and monthly on-line magazines of titles. Follett Corporation
http://www.follett.com
Information about their stores, used book services, and software which allows schools to search their used book database. Libraries The American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/
Check out the FAQ (http://www.ala.org/library/larcfaqs.html) including information on how to market to libraries and some statistics. Otherwise, info on the annual conference, policies and links to library sites. Canadian Library Association
http://www.cla.amlibs.ca/
Information on the association, their conference and their publications. Faculty of Information Studies (U of T)
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/
Includes a list of resources to do with information management. Libraries Online
http://www.librariesonline.org/
This US site is a collaboration between Microsoft, Technology Resource Institute and the American Library Association. The project is helping remote US libraries provide electronic services. Association of Research Libraries
http://arl.cni.org/.
This site includes a surprising amount of information on copyright and electronic delivery issues. Highlights include a detailed report for institutions considering signing electronic rights licenses (it may help publishers create their licenses), another report entitled Librarians and Publishers in the Scholarly Information Process The Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org/
This organisation tries to provide many of the services of a public library to the on-line community. Other sites visited American Federation of Teachers
http://www.aft.org No interest to Canadian publishers. Information for union members. Canadian Teachers Federation
http://www.ctf-fce.ca/
This site offers press releases from the federation and an information sheet on Teaching in Canada. The Children's Books Council
http://www.cbcbooks.org/
This US site will be of interest to authors and publishers of children's books. Canadian Children's Book Centre
http://www3.sympatico.ca/ccbc
Aimed at people interested in writing children's books. Interactive Multimedia Arts & Technologies Association
http://www.imat.ca
IMAT is the association for CD-ROM , WWW and other multimedia developers. The site includes information on the association, meetings schedules, a job bank, places to get training, and a newsletter. |
