It is the policy of the editors of the annual Canadian Sourcebook, formerly known as the Corpus Almanac and Sourcebook, to include significant changes each year – changes suggested by its users. For 1997, the immediately obvious change is the larger format and increased print size. This is a welcome improvement over the almost painfully small print of the last several years. The new format also allows the book to lie flatter than its predecessors, volumes that tended to slam shut as the librarian tried to juggle phone, note pad, and Sourcebook. They have also rearranged the indexes yet again; the section subindexes to newsletters, associations, etc., first introduced in 1994, have been remerged with the main index at the back, and the names of individual school boards, libraries, and book publishers have been added. This comprehensive index is complemented by a quick-reference index that has been added to the front of the book, as well as a table of contents preceding each section.

While this policy of listening to the users is commendable, it can lead to excessive tinkering. Among the many impacts that downsizing has had on reference desks, the two most obvious are that more library assistants, rather than librarians, are dealing with quick-reference queries, and that all staff are having to deal with more questions in less time. It is important, therefore, that standard reference resources, such as the Canadian Sourcebook, be complete, easy to use, accurate, provide fast direct access, and be generally consistent from year to year. A plethora of unfamiliar access points can be frustrating and time consuming.

As in any directory of this size, there are some errors and omissions (for example, some Ontario mayors are listed incorrectly, and there are no listings of community information centres). While this criticism is fast becoming obsolete in the Internet age, it is still of concern to those libraries without easy access to the Net.

With these reservations, the Canadian Sourcebook remains the best up-to-date, Canadian, single-reference tool to cover the broad spectrum of Canadian life, and is a necessary purchase for medium or large public and academic libraries.