What organization has the world’s largest repository of information? The U.S. Government, of course. But it’s spread out over so many departments and organizations that knowing where to look for something is daunting beyond belief.

My recent forays have included efforts to find nutritional information, tax forms and how to build a cold frame (that’s a kind of mini-greenhouse). All the information was there but I ended at the FDA not by trying to navigate its site but via search engine.

There have been a couple of specialty search engines that focused on the government for a while. I’ve used GovSpot, and SearchGov in my information addiction. But now the 800 pound gorilla of search engines, Google as joined in government search. Like the others, but with a lot more muscle, it appears to be a kind of one stop shop for government information, including customizable front page news feeds. BTW it should be 86 and sunny in Washington D.C today. Google does state government documents in the site, too.

I imagine that this is just the first of this type of focused search sites and a good one to start with. “There is a trend toward developing more finite, category-specific searches,” said Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. “Government employees are among the heaviest users of government Web sites, so there’s a market.”

A November 2004 Pew survey found that 54 percent of Internet users have looked for information from government Web sites, and 10 percent of users will look for such information on any given day.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 7:38 am and is filed under Web Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.