Canadian Almanac & Directory 1984: Susan Bracken

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

This is another well-established reference tool (this is its 137th year of publication), extremely useful for its authoritativeness and its addresses. It is becoming more and more a “directory” and less and less an “almanac”: less than 10 percent of it has almanac-type data. The four parts of the annual are: a Canadian Directory (928 pages), which consists of lists of art galleries, associations, media, legal groups, libraries, governments, school boards, and so forth; Almanac Data (30 pages) covering astronomy, climate, holidays; Canadian Information and Statistics (70 pages), on banks, consumer price index, exports, imports, population, metric guide, forms of address, and so forth; and Canadian Law Firms and Lawyers, arranged by province and then by city. A quick analysis of some of section one (“Book Publishers”) of the Canadian Directory part shows that while lots of French-language publishers are listed, there is no real indication of what constitutes a “major” publisher. Many publishers with six publisher digits in their ISBN are here, and these are presumably smaller than those with five publisher digits who are not here. Simon & Pierre’s old address is here (they moved in February 1983) while Clarke Irwin’s new address is also here (they moved in July 1983); but the Almanac did not catch their new name (“Clarke Irwin 1983”). Still, the book is a necessary purchase for all libraries.