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The article describes the evolution of the Canadian Census publishing program over the years. It will pay particular attention to the developments in electronic publishing. Census dissemination via Canada's Depository Services Program (DSP) will also be described. While there are many different ways in which one could describe census publishing in Canada, from the point of view of distribution media, there are fairly distinct phases of evolution. During the period 1871 to 1956, all outputs from the census were on paper Basic Summary Tabulations (BSTs) were the first machine-readable files distributed after the 1961 census. Public use micro-data files were introduced for the 1971 census. During this time paper products continued to be the major output format. Commencing in 1986, census outputs on personal computer (PC) readable media with access software were made available to users. This service was extended in 1991, and by 1996 the Internet was introduced as means of dissemination. While the Internet was the major dissemination vehicle for 2001, key outputs continued to be disseminated in this article.

The article presents a discussion on news and information being given by the Early Canadiana Online. It states that by spring of 2006, Canada's major official publications will be digitized from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. It explains that once the digitization is completed, 1.5 million pages of some of Canada's most significant heritage documents, which includes acts, debates, legislative journals, and sessional papers, will be available with full-text searching on the net with the use of Early Canadiana Online.