Nunavut
Nunavut has the distinction of being Canada’s newest territory. The legislature held its first sitting on April 1, 1999.
The Legislative Library of Nunavut is the youngest library in the territory; it was established late in 1998 with the hiring of librarian Gayle Jessop by the Office of Interim Commissioner of Nunavut. The delivery of information services and the foundation of the collection began in a temporary location until the library opened in the new legislature building in the fall of 1999, with a reading and research area full of windows and light.
The Library provides information and reference services in English and Inuktitut and maintains a collection and an online catalogue in Nunavut’s four official languages: Inuktitut, English, Inuinnaqtun and French. Its primary clientele are Members of the Legislative Assembly, including the Executive Council, Assembly staff members and MLAs’ constituency staff. Government of Nunavut employees are a large client group as there are few departmental libraries. The Library also welcomes members of the public, including researchers from around the world, to use the collections in-house.
It is the responsibility of the Legislative Library to collect and make accessible all the public documents of the Government of Nunavut (GN). A repository of GN e-documents is being built and hardcopy documents continue to be added. The Library also holds the public documents from the Nunavut Implementation Commission and the Office of the Interim Commissioner which immediately preceded the new government. The general collection includes reports of the Nunavut Land Claim organizations, annual reports of Inuit organizations and items in various formats which focus on the history and development of Nunavut.
The Library has taken a lead role in the cataloguing of Inuktitut materials in non-Roman (syllabic) script. This has provided syllabic search capability by author and title for material published in Inuktitut.
The Library has 2 full time permanent staff, one of whom is a librarian.