Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Finding info on the Web (was Re: Frontier plus idiot...)
Author: Dave Polaschek Posted: 7/29/1999; 7:37:05 AM Topic: Frontier plus idiot me=help. Msg #: 8872 (In response to 8852) Prev/Next: 8871 / 8873
Thank you for this great link.No problem. One thing I find interesting is that people seem to be more likely to search for a commercial source for information they need than to look for a government source. This is definitely helped by the way the search engines search, since most goverment sites seem to be designed to frustrate both humans and spiders. On the other hand, our tax dollars are paying for this stuff, and it seems a shame not to use it.
One trick to finding information on government servers (for those within the US) is to contact your representatives in DC. In my experience, there are a lot more reps (and Senators) who have at least one technically-savvy person on staff. That person may be the webmaster for the rep's site, in which case you can sometimes get a double-win by suggesting they add links of "useful information" to the rep's site. Even if there isn't a technically astute person on staff, the staffers with any seniority often have a much better idea of which department would have the information you're looking for. Once you're within the right department, the search is quite a bit easier.
The other trick that I've been falling back on more and more lately (as the percentage of the web indexed has fallen into the teens on most of the search engines) is to ask the research person at the public library. More and more libraries are getting on the web, which means that the research librarian, besides having a good knowledge of how to find things on paper, is learning how to find more things electronically. Since they're paid to do that sort of thing, they have more time to search out the useful nooks and crannies than I do, and sometimes come up with surprisingly good references.
Of course talking to a congressional staffer or librarian at 3am isn't likely to happen, but if you need information during business hours, they're good resources.
-DaveP
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