4 - Find Government Documents, Policy Papers, Legislation and Grey Literature - Public Policy

What is Grey Literature?

Grey literature is information produced outside traditional publications (such as scholarly journals). It includes reports, policy briefs and reports, white papers, working papers, government documents, speeches, etc...
Although not published in traditional media, grey literature can help you find some "behind the scene" information about how policies and decisions came to be.
Given that they are not usually "officially" published, they can be tricky to find. Use the tips below to find grey literature.

Google Advanced Search

You can use a Google advanced search to look for working papers, internal documents, and white papers particularly from international organizations.

Search for "working papers" and specify the URL of the website you want to search (ex: un.org).

Library Databases

Policy Commons (Coherent Digital)
A one-stop community platform for objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, IGOs and NGOs.
Canada Commons (Coherent Digital)
Contains the Canadian Electronic Library formerly on the Des Libris platform, and Canadian Books & Think Tanks.
Unlimited simultaneous users.
CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online)
Full text documents and citations from international relations journals, policy briefs by international think tanks.
Canadian Research Index (ProQuest)
Periodicals covering Canada and Canadian issues in general reference arts, business, humanities, health, social sciences, sciences and current affairs. - Library can facilitate negotiating text-mining rights for this database for McGill faculty and students wishing to acquire the rights with their own research funds. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Open Grey: European grey literature. It covers Science, Technology, Biomedical Science, Economics, Social Science and Humanities

Government of Canada Website
Parliament of Canada Website
- Debates: Record of what was said in parliament
- Parliamentary Journals: Record of what was done in parliament
- Sessional Papers: Documents submitted to parliament

Acts of the Parliament of Canada (Annual Statutes) (HeinOnline)
Collection of the Public General Acts in the form in which they were originally enacted by Parliament in a given calendar year and official consolidations of 1985, 1970, 1952, 1927, 1906, and 1886.

American Law Institute Library (HeinOnline)
Contains full runs of the Institute's Annual Reports, Proceedings, Annual Meeting Speeches, and the Institute's newsletter, The ALI Reporter. Also includes both current and archival Restatements of the Law, Uniform Commercial Code, Model Penal Code, ALI-ABA Periodicals, and the Statement of Essential Human Rights.
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) (HeinOnline)
Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S. (HeinOnline)

HeinOnline - Law Journal Library
Canadian and American legal journals covering 2,700 periodicals .
Foreign & International Law Resources Database (HeinOnline)
Harvard Research in International Law (HeinOnline)
History of International Law (HeinOnline)
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (HeinOnline)
A subject index to selected international and comparative law periodicals and collections of essays produced by the Berkeley Law Library with coverage since 1985.
United Nations Law Collection (HeinOnline)
Major UN legal publications: UN Treaty Series, the League of Nations Treaty Series, the Monthly Statement of Treaties & International Agreements, UNCITRAL Publications, UNIDIR Publications, the UN Legislative Series .
World Treaty Library (HeinOnline)
UN iLibrary (United Nations)
Comprehensive global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created and published by the United Nations.

AND: Combines two concepts, both will be represented in the results.

OR: Joins two concepts or synonyms

NOT: Removes the results that include the word that follows it

* truncation or wildcard: Place at the end of the root of a word and all the words with a different ending will be represented in the results

Use instead of plurals / can also replace a letter
Increases the number of results
Ex: Wom*n = will show results with woman and women. Canad* will show Canada, Canadian, canadien, canadienne, etc…

Liaison Librarian for Economics and Public Policy

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Subjects: Economics, Feminist studies, French language and literature, International development, LGBTQ studies, Public policy, Québec studies, Translation studies