The Canadian Global Almanac 2004

Jeffrey Moon is head of the Documents Reference/Data Centre at Queen’s
University.

Canadian Global Almanac 2004 continues the tradition of providing a
broad range of convenient facts and figures on Canada and the world. On
the Canadian front, this book has sections dealing with the land, the
people, the nation, and the economy. These are the same categories used
by Statistics Canada (until very recently) to organize their “Canadian
Statistics” web page; not coincidentally, the almanac relies heavily
on data from Statistics Canada.

The almanac presents more comprehensive, conveniently organized
information than can be found easily on the web. For example, it
provides the population of Canadian cities in 2001 and 1996, as well as
each city’s land area in square kilometres. This is a
“value-added” table not readily available on the Statistics Canada
website.

Globally, there are sections on world history, nations of the world,
geography, and population. These are useful, though not nearly as
detailed as other, more country-focused resources such as the Europa
World Year Book and the Statesman’s Year-book. Also included are
sections on science and nature, arts and entertainment, and sports.

The almanac is full of conveniences, such as a glossary of investment
terms and a variety of mortgage calculation tables. Statistics and
information is current to 2003. As a result, some information is
outdated; for example, Jean Chrétien is still listed as prime minister,
and Sheila Copps still has a job.

Earlier editions of the almanac had colour maps of the world; these
have been eliminated. The current almanac has just a handful of
black-and-white maps showing Canadian provinces, geology, and weather
patterns. There is a detailed 28-page index that complements the subject
categories provided in the table of contents.

Canadian Global Almanac 2004 strikes a good balance between Canadian,
world, and general-interest information, but it is a distinctly Canadian
resource. Canadian libraries and data-junkies, this is your off-line
info-fix; no pop-ups, no viruses, and no connection fees.