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Monday 24 June 2013

GEDS - Government Electronic Directory Services

There are instances when you need to deal with a government agency instead of your representative. There are any number of reasons for this. You might want a job with the government. You might want to inquire about a government program. You may think there is funding available and you would like to access it if you qualify. You might want information for a research paper. This speculative list could easily take up several pages.

Very often getting the access you need means making a connection to the right person who can answer your questions and help you with whatever it is you need help with. Before the Internet came along the way to accomplish that was to decide what I thought was the appropriate government department, look that up in the phone book and then start phoning. At some point the phone book provided special pages for government departments, locally, provincially and federally.

I discovered early on that the first person who answered a call might not be the right person I needed. I learned to have paper and pen handy to write down phone numbers. Very often the first person contacted would refer me to someone else and give me a phone number. That person usually wasn't the right person but they would helpfully give me another contact name and number. It usually took me on average seven to eight phone calls to finally get the person who could deal with what I needed.

You may still have to go through some of that, but now we have the Internet and we have GEDS. Click here to access it.

From that web site's frequently asked questions I have compiled what you need to know about GEDS. I will omit quotation marks.

Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS) provides a directory listing of federal public servants and manages the Government of Canada telephone directories. GEDS searches all regions: Ottawa-Gatineau, Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Western and British Columbia/Yukon. Canadians have access to public servants' names, titles, telephone and facsimile numbers, departmental names, and office locations within the governmental structure. In some cases public servants' email addresses may be available.

When searching using GEDS a specific person or position may not be found. Departments and agencies are solely responsible for updating the information regarding their organization in GEDS. Most departments list employees under their Branches. However, some departments only list their main Branches with a general enquiries number with no people entries. Other departments may choose to list contact information of only their managers and upper management. If you find that you cannot find the exact role or person you are looking for then get a piece of paper and a pen and be prepared to make seven or eight phone calls to find them.

There are two ways to search GEDS. One involves entering search criteria for the search engine. The other involves browsing an alphabetical listing of the government's departments. These can be accessed by clicking the appropriate links on the left hand side of the GEDS screen. The default method is the advanced search.

To use the advanced search if it is not displayed click on 'Advanced Search' on the left. For the advanced search there is an entry box and two drop down boxes. One selects the fields for which search criteria will be entered in the entry box and the other selects how the search engine will deal with the entered criteria. Enter the search criteria and select the fields it should match and how the search engine should deal with the criteria and click the 'Search' button.

To browse the GEDS database click 'Department Listing.' A set of buttons with the letters of the alphabet will be arrayed across the top with an alphabetical listing below. You may click a letter or scroll down to find the department you are looking for. When you click on a department you will get listings involving that department. You may have to click on a number of different links before you find a connection that will help you.

If necessary you can click on 'Click here for more help' and that will give you detailed instruction on how to search and browse the database.Spending a few minutes familiarizing yourself with how the GEDS search engine works should make you proficient enough with it to find the contact in the government that you need.