Bird-Doggin' the Internet

Government Resources

Engineering and scientific researchers, as well as technical librarians, were shocked when Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley announced on August 12^th that plans were underway to shut down the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The rationale was that increasing use of the Internet allowed engineers and researchers to access an increasing amount of information for free. He backed up this claim by noting that NTIS publication revenues have fallen almost 50% since 1993. While this is far from a "done deal," those in the know see some of the NTIS information going to the Library of Congress while other, perhaps more "marketable," information will be available through a privatization deal with the Northern Light search engine. Individuals can access the new Northern Light usgovsearch site at http://standard.northern light.com/cgi-bin/govsearch_login.pl. Individuals pay $5 for a day pass, $30 for a month's access, or $250 per year. Company accounts will probably start at about $1,000 per year. If you want to see the old NTIS site before it fades away, go to http://www.ntis.gov.

So now is probably the best time to familiarize yourself with government repositories if you want to avoid the expense of living with "privatization," or the inconvenience of not being able to find those resources which billions of your tax dollars have gone to create. To get a head start, try How to Effectively Locate Federal Government Information on the Web by Patricia Cruse and Sherry De Decker (both government information and document librarians). Located at http://gort.ucsd.edu/pcruse/universe/intro.html, this tutorial is designed for hands-on exploration of how government organizations are structured, auxiliary sources of guidance, search tips, and links to various subject categories. The National Science Foundation also has a site at http://www.nsf.gov. There you can find programs in computer and information science, engineering, and the physical sciences. Current news highlights are also available. The engineering programs focus on funded research in chemistry, civil and mechanical engineering, design, manufacturing, and industrial innovation. You can also subscribe to news alerts of new research and documents.

Fedstats at http://www.fedstats.gov/mod-perl/A2Z.cgi provides links from A to W for almost 100 Federal agencies covering agriculture to wages and weekly earnings. Almost any statistic you can think of is probably embodied here with hot links. From here, it's only a short hop to Community of Science at http://www.cos.com, which serves primarily as a network of researchers worldwide. Find other development personnel with similar projects and interests, funding opportunities, news, and database resources (for members). Contains both free and subscription services. It includes government research sources, patent resources, and links to European research projects -- primarily funded ones.

GovBot at http://ciir2.cs.umass.edu/Govbot/ is an experiment in indexing and classifying over a million government and military Web site pages. Housed at the University of Massachusetts, it is available for searching by making structured queries for receiving from 10 to 100 hits. You can filter your search to ADD, REQUIRE, or REJECT specific key words in a document title or URL. Scientific and engineering resources were fairly well represented in the searches I did. Another offering is GovSpot at http://www.govspot.com which links to government branches (executive, judicial, and legislative), state and local governments, government employees, and topical areas. Included are government search engines, libraries, statistics resources, and science and technology sites. The latter include NSAS, DoE, NIST, Chemical Safety links, and more. You can also sign up for a free newsletter that alerts you periodically to new government sites and content additions.

For the Big Book of Links, I was impressed by Poppa Sterby's The Government by Sterby at http://users.erols.com/irasterb/gov.htm. Here you will find links to government branches, independent and quasi-official agencies, state governments, foreign governments, and federal jobs. There are links to search engines and government information servers, legal resources, and Supreme Court decisions. FedWorld, at http://www.fedworld.gov, is also a useful collection of search forms and links to government reports, BBSs, government sites, and databases. Database resources include military and industrial standards, FAA information, FTP archives, NTIS, and foreign technology alerts. The National Technology Transfer Center at http://www.nttc.edu/homepage/map.asp also has some good links to government sites, programs, funding sources and opportunities, technical resources, and on-line courses. The NIST site at http://www.nist.gov is available as html or text and emphasizes technology, measurement, and standards. There are links to the Baldrige Quality Program, The Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Advanced Technology Programs, and Measurement and Standards Laboratories. The "Guide" shows major links at a glance for all disciplines by program.

And for some irreverent Halloween fun [thanks to 'Yahoo picks'], peak under the wrappings of The Virtual Mummy at http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de/institute imdm/idv/forschung/mumie/. Ahhh--to be a student again!