Many states are working to craft digital archives of their online activities, leading some committed states to even include tweets, Facebook pages, and other alternative sources. This site from the Alabama Department of Archives & History contains everything from the online activities of the Alabama Legislature to the Twitter feeds of selected political parties in the state. All told, there are 31...

Written by Darrell M. West of Brown University and posted on his Inside Politics site, this report is based on a study of 1,813 state and federal government Websites. Each site was examined for 27 different features and ranked on a 100-point scale. The top-ranked state was Texas, with 51 percent, and the lowest was Rhode Island with 29 percent. Federal sites fared much better though displaying a...

NTIS FedWorld WWW homepage includes a list of more than 100 US. Government information servers, each sorted by NTIS Subject categories. Also, limited information on the services provided by NTIS, as well as access to many of the free files that are available from the dialup/telnet FedWorld interface.

The US General Accounting Office has released two reports that should be very useful to researchers, journalists, policy makers, librarians, and anyone in the general public interested in accessing US government information electronically. Internet and Electronic Dial-Up Bulletin Boards concentrates on an accounting of federal BBS and Internet expenditures, but contains an eight page section...

The United States Department of Commerce has an active Native American Affairs program whose work is coordinated by a team of government professionals and advisors. On the homepage, visitors can learn about the program's advising work, which includes outreach related to small businesses, intertribal relations, and reservation-based economic development programs. Visitors can look over the Policy...

The New York State Library started digitizing a range of New York government documents in a wonderful online catalog and website. The collection covers a wide range of materials including government surveys, state census results, and first had descriptions of the Native American experience throughout the Empire State. In total, there are twelve collections here, including Laws of New York State...

Founded in 2006, the Sunlight Foundation employs and develops new internet technologies "to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government." This website focuses on the political partying circuit, also known as fundraising. These parties reveal, "the relationships between lobbyists, congressional candidates, issues being lobbied and campaign...

This report, from Darrell M. West, Brown University, updates his report for 2000 (discussed in the September 22, 2000 Scout Report) on the electronic delivery of government information and services. The 23-page report looks at the functionality and accessibility of state and government Websites, progress made from last year, and differences among the states. In general, the project found that...

At one time, creating and maintaining a Web site was an option for government agencies. However, with the increase in Internet traffic, laws and executive orders are now mandating that governments provide, at a minimum, basic online information and services to the Internet community. This report, produced by the Pew Internet and the American Life Project, states that nearly 68 million American...

This site, provided by six US Government agencies ranging from the Federal Trade Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Food and Drug Administration, is aimed at providing one-stop shopping for consumer information. It points to relevant consumer-oriented government information in the fields of food, health, home, transportation, children, buying smart, product safety, money,...