IMPORTANT NOTICE TO OUR CLIENTS

On Saturday, December 13, 2003, the Prime Minister announced the immediate elimination of Communication Canada's Sponsorship Program, and, at the same time, advised that Communication Canada will be disbanded at the end of the current fiscal year, i.e. on March 31, 2004.

Among numerous other initiatives, Communication Canada manages the Publishing and Depository Services Program (PDS) including Crown Copyright. The program distributes Government of Canada publications in all formats to the general public and libraries within Canada and abroad.

We believe that it is important to let you know that this Program and related services will be carrying on business as usual until March 31, 2004. The disposition of PDS after that date has yet to be decided.

In the meantime, the programs will continue to acquire and supply Government of Canada publications to its public and private sector customers as well as its library network within Canada as well as to some 150 institutions around the world that house GoC collections.

The Weekly Checklist of monographs and serial titles for libraries will continue to be produced.

The DSP will maintain its collection of Government of Canada publications in electronic format that are available on the DSP server, and will continue to support several informative Web sites, among them the GoC Core Subject Thesaurus and the Canada Site Clusters Publications showcase pages.

Orders can still be submitted by telephone between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST and on-line by visiting http://publications.gc.ca.

A transition team will be reviewing all of Communication Canada's services, including the PDS. As soon as we receive additional news about the Program, we will share that information with you.

We assure you that you will continue to receive the same level of service that you have come to expect of the Publishing and Depository Services Program. We ask for your understanding as we go through this difficult transition process.