«Chatelaine» Presents Who's Who of Canadian Women, 1998

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

This eighth edition of a reference classic now contains 3500 biographies
of contemporary Canadian women.

The brief yet detailed entries pack an incredible amount of information
into a few inches of copy. The bios include degrees, position/title,
address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail and Web site addresses, date
of birth, education, spouse and children’s names, career details (with
dates), publications and/or other credits or exhibitions, affiliations,
accomplishments, interests and even a comment or direct quote.

The women come from all parts of Canada and from all areas of
society—medicine, the arts, the media, education, sports,
entertainment, agriculture, the military, the nonprofit sector, law,
journalism, technology, government and politics, religion, business and
industry.

The bios are organized alphabetically, with icons used as a short cut
to identifying the field of expertise (i.e., sports, arts). To further
facilitate access, there’s an index by company/organization name and
another by primary occupation.

The work has value for networking, job hunting, finding speakers for
conventions, and various other types of research. However, it needs to
be recognized that it is far from being a comprehensive listing of
prominent Canadian women. The criteria for inclusion is elusive.
Self-nomination, perhaps? Certainly the selection is uneven (heavy on
government and universities, light on college, business and industry).
More might have been done to make it more inclusive.