Legislative Library

• The database contains digital versions of published Manitoba government documents from the early 2000s to present. Included are major reports and public information from departments and government agencies.
• Occasionally, we add documents from prior to 2000.
• The database does not include Debates, Bills, Statutes, Gazettes, or Regulations.
• The Digital Collection may also be searched through our online catalogue.
• To view the most recent additions to the Legislative Library's Digital Collection, please use the links provided in the Manitoba Government Publications Monthly Checklist.
• The database currently contains over 15,000 documents (August 2018)

All documents are in (PDF) format

• A proposed regulation under The Water Protection Act: nutrient concentration and loading targets for Lake Winnipeg and its tributaries: public consultation document.
  Winnipeg: Manitoba Conservation and Climate, 2020.
• Rental housing programs: policy manual.
  Winnipeg: Manitoba Housing, 2020.
• Orange Shirt Day Fund: grant guide.
  Winnipeg: Manitoba Indigenous Reconciliation Secretariat, 2024.
• 100-day action plan.
  Winnipeg: Manitoba Premier's Office, 2019.
• Protocols between Child and Family Service Authority Agencies and women's shelters in Manitoba.
  Winnipeg: Manitoba Families, 2018.

All documents are in (PDF) format

• Group home review ;
  • (Part 1)
  • (Part 2)
• Manitoba's rights ignored, lands withheld, boundaries restricted: speech by Hon. Robert Rogers, Minister of Public Works, in the provincial legislature February 23rd, 1906.
• Summary of Manitoba's bounty system 1878-1965: statistical summary bounty payments 1944-1965. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Manitoba Dept. of Mines and Natural Resources, Wildlife Branch, 1965.
• Working paper on electoral systems.

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1. Switching between Digital Collection and Legislative Reporting search sessions – how do I refresh the session?
2. What is the Digital Collection of Manitoba Government Publications? Why is it important?
3. What does the Digital Collection include?
4. What is excluded?
5. How many years are covered by the Digital Collection?
6. Why do some PDFs look different from their print counterparts?
7. How can I view the PDF document in a larger window?
8. When would I choose Search or Browse to find publications?
9. What languages are represented in the Digital Collection?
10. Am I permitted to freely use the PDFs contained in the Digital Collection?
11. How can I give feedback?

1.When you have finished searching in one database, and wish to begin searching the other, please remember to click the ‘Sign Out’ link in the Search menu. Then you can launch your next search session in the other database.

2. The Legislative Library’s Digital Collection is a searchable archive of full text Manitoba government publications in PDF format.

The Digital Collection is significant because it provides permanent Internet access to publications of the Government of Manitoba, when the department’s or agency’s links to those publications may disappear from their websites.

3. Publications of Manitoba Government departments and agencies are included in the database. A complete list of departments, offices, agencies, boards and commissions represented in the Digital Collection can be accessed here. If you don’t find publications by a particular organization you are looking for, it may be that the Legislative Library is still attempting to acquire or is processing them for inclusion to the Digital Collection.

Types of publications include:

• Reports of Inquiry Commissions and Task Forces
• Departmental studies
• Information Bulletins
• Newsletters
• Annual Reports
• Financial publications (Budgets, Public Accounts)
• Statistical reports

4. Official publications such as Statutes, Hansard and Bills are excluded from the Digital Collection. Forms, posters, and promotional material are also excluded.

5. The database contains over 3,000 individual publications dating from 1996 to 2008. We are continually locating new as well as older publications, and these are added to the Digital Collection on a monthly basis.

6. Most publications were archived from PDFs on the Internet, and will closely resemble their printed equivalents. Still other publications were re-formatted from older websites in order to make them easier to read and to use within the Digital Collection.

7 Click/tap this image which appears in the upper right corner of the application window. The PDF will launch in its own window, which you can then size appropriately.

8. Use Search if you want to receive specific results. You can input your search words into the “Search for” full text box, or use the search fields instead. Remember that full text searching will always return more results than field searching.

Use Browse if you want to glance through folders of departments, subjects, authors or collections of Manitoba government publications. Each publication in the Digital Collection belongs to a set of folders under its parent department or
agency, as well as subjects that reflect the publication’s content.

9. English and French are the predominant languages of publications contained in the database. There are also some items in Cree and German.

When you are browsing through department name folders, you will find PDFs that are published in English and French, listed under the English and French departmental name folders.

If you are searching and want to know if an item you’ve located is published in more than one language, check the citation in your Search results for the applicable link:

Title: Aboriginal education action plan 2004/05 : highlights report Other language edition: Plan d’action sur l’éducation autochtone: rapport des points saillants : année 1, 2004/05 ;- Selecting the French title will link you to a French language edition for this publication.

10. You are welcome to search, view and print for your study and research single copies of PDFs in the database. Other reproduction of materials is governed by the Government of Manitoba’s copyright policy.

11. The Legislative Library welcomes your feedback and suggestions. Please forward comments to legislative_library@gov.mb.ca Thank you!

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• System Requirements
• Switching between Digital Collection and Legislative Reporting search sessions – how do I refresh the session?
• General Search Tips
• Full Text Searches
• Field or Metadata Searching
• Modify Search
• Search History
• Browse Searching
• Wildcard Searching
• Mixed Search
• Keyword or Field Searching

System Requirements

The Digital Collection is best accessed using Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, Mozilla 1.0 or later, and Netscape 6.0 or later. Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later is required to view PDF documents. Documents can be quite lengthy, 1 to 10 MB in size or larger, so you will require a high speed connection to have a satisfying search experience.

Switching between Digital Collection and Legislative Reporting search sessions – how do I refresh the session?

When you have finished searching in one database, and wish to begin searching the other, please remember to click the ‘Sign Out’ link in the Search menu. Then you can launch your next search session in the other database.

General Search Tips

To use the French language search interface, click on the français link within the Digital Collection during your search session.

Searches are not case sensitive, so capitalization is unnecessary.

• Enter nopiming provincial park

You may enter search terms in English and French for Titles, Department/Agency names, Authors and any keyword appearing in either language in a document. Please note: Subject terms are input in English only

• Enter Title Un avenir prometteur OR Titre A bright future
• Enter Agence conseil des arts du manitoba OR Agency manitoba arts council
• Enter Subject ‘educational tests and measurements’
• Enter keywords ‘inondation’, ‘flood’, ‘river’, rivière’

Use quotes to search for a specific phrase or name.

• Enter "manitoba capital region"

To search in the year(s) field, enter year or year ranges.

• Enter 2000 or 2000-2004 or >2000

To navigate to a prior screen, click on the breadcrumbs at the top of your results window in Internet Explorer, or click the Back button.

To clear the results of a previous search, select New search before continuing with your next search.

Full Text Searches

Searches entered in the Search for box are full text keyword searches, ie, they are performed on the complete text of every PDF document contained in the Digital Collection. You may select the kind of full text search you wish depending on the result you want:

Full text Boolean search

Full text searches default to Boolean, which automatically combines all of your keyword search terms together using ‘and’. You may also use ‘or’ and ‘not’ along with your search words. Results are not ranked or expanded.

• Enter wills lawyers to retrieve documents containing both of these words
• Enter wills or lawyers to retrieve documents containing either of these words
• Enter wills not lawyers to retrieve documents containing the word wills but not lawyers

Full text Concept search – use the down arrow to select Concept search
Automatically retrieves synonyms and other related words (expanded search) on all search words. Ranks returned documents according to greatest relevance.

• Enter justice to retrieve justice, judge, juge, etc.

Full text Pattern search – use the down arrow to select Pattern search
Accommodates spelling differences and ‘half-words’ by expanding the search. Ranks returned documents according to greatest relevance.

• Enter process to retrieve process, procedure
• Enter honor to retrieve honor, honour

Field or Metadata Searching

• Search for words or phrases contained in Title, Department/Agency, Author, Subject, or to search for dates in the Date of publication field.
• Words or phrases may be entered in multiple fields.
• Order of words you enter does not matter (words are searched as keywords within a field or fields, not as a phrase from left to right.)
• Use Field searching to narrow your search when a full text search retrieves too many documents.

Modify Search

• If your search returns too many documents, click in the box labelled Search Within Results and type in additional search terms, in either the ‘Search for’ full text search box or the field search boxes, to narrow your results.

Search History

• To repeat a previous search, click the Search History button, then select a particular search you would like to replicate.

Browse Searching

Clicking on the Browse link will take you to:

• Browse by Department and Agency – View alphabetical listings of Manitoba government departments and agencies, under which publications are grouped
• Browse by Collection – Collection Browse has reports listed under Departments and Agencies, as well Task Force and Commissions of Inquiry listed separately under Special report
• Browse by Subject – View Subject listings, in alphabetical order, under which Manitoba government publications are grouped
• Browse by Author – View alphabetical listing of personal names and other Manitoba organizations responsible for creating publications.

Wildcard Searching

Wildcard Searching

Wildcards	Descriptions	Example
_	match one or zero characters	colo_r
@	match exactly one alpha character	gr@y
#	match exactly one numeric character	#600
*	match anything or nothing	comput*
?	match exactly one character	wom?n
^	match any character except the next character	200[^7]
[ ]	search expression; can include a hyphen to indicate a range of letters or numbers; will match only one character within the brackets	200[2-6]
adj	search expression; Word1 must be found within N words of word2, and word1 must come before word2.	word1 word2 adj N
within	search expression; Word1 must be found within N words of word2.	word1 word2 within N

Mixed Search

• Use ! to expand one word via a concept search when not in concept mode.
• Enter road! pikwitonei in Boolean or Pattern mode to do a concept search on only the word road. 
• Use ~ to do pattern expansion on one word when in Boolean or Concept mode.
• Enter public ~nurse in Boolean or Concept mode to do a pattern search on only the word nurse.
• Use " " to keep specific search words from being expanded when in Concept or Pattern mode.
• Enter "irrigation” aquifer in a Concept or Pattern search to keep the word irrigation from being expanded.

Keyword or Field Searching

After choosing Boolean, Concept, or Pattern as the search type, enter your search words in the keyword search box; in one or more field search boxes (Title, Author, Subject, and Year); or in a combination of the keyword and field search boxes.

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