Perceptions (magazine)

PERCEPTIONS is a glbtq newsmagazine which began publication in 1983 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada).

The periodical is, to the writer's knowledge, the longest-running glbtq publication in Canada. It provides broad geographical news coverage, but with emphasis on the three Canadian prairie provinces (Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba). Issues also often carry opinion pieces, book and music reviews, articles on local glbtq history, and analytical pieces. Health issues in the glbtq community have been an ongoing concern of the publishers. A directory of glbtq prairie organizations is printed in each issue.

A detailed index, covering the period 1983 through 2004, is available electronically and in print. The electronic index is freely available to all for searching through the University of Saskatchewan Library's "Saskatchewan Resources for Sexual Diversity" Web site. The URL for that index is: http://library2.usask.ca/srsd/perceptions/

Copies of the magazine are held in a number of Canadian libraries, in full or partial runs. See, for example, the holdings of Library and Archives Canada, University of Saskatchewan Library (Saskatoon), University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Library, and the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (Toronto).

For those interested in but unable to examine issues of the magazine, a good first approach would be to look at the readily available online index, or, if convenient, to examine a collection of articles from the periodical, published under the title: GAY ON THE CANADIAN PRAIRIE: TWENTY YEARS OF PERCEPTIONS, 1983-2002. The collection is available in a limited number of Canadian academic libraries.

Please feel free to expand on this information.