GSA Fine Art
http://www.gsa.gov/pbs/pt/pts/cultural.htm
Follow the pointers provided at this site to locate information about and images of paintings, modern art, and historic federal buildings administered by the General Services Administration. The various selections can be searched by state. So if you are interested, you can find what fine art resides in Alpena, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Port Huron, and Saginaw, or anywhere else in the country for that matter. There is also a link to fine art administered by the Bureau of Reclamation.

Glitch Management
http://saturn.vcu.edu/~dream/index.html
Ever have to give a documents presentation online, only to have the equipment or connection fail? Check out this site for some advice on "The Fine Art of Glitch Management" from Dan Ream, Virginia Commonwealth University, via NETTRAIN, January 29, 1997.

Global Environment Outlook (UNEP)
http://www.unep.org/unep/eia/geo1/
The United Nations Environment Programme has recently released this report, "a snap-shot of an ongoing worldwide environmental assessment process." It "describes the environmental status and trends in seven regions...summarizes developments over time in regional policy responses...[and] concludes with an exploration, based on model analysis, of what we might expect in the future for a selected number of environmental issues if no major policy reforms are initiated." An executive summary for each chapter is first presented, followed by the full report, which contains over seventy figures and thirty tables. The power of the report lies in its regional analysis. A second GEO report is due to be released in 1999. Source : Scout Report, February 28,1997.

Global Warming
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Home Page on Global Warming is served by the Waste Policy Institute for the EPA Office of Economy and Environment. This well organized site contains a great deal of information on global warming, climate change, and the greenhouse effect. It contains reports, slide presentations, and a glossary of terms, among other features. It also contains predictions on the impacts of global warming and discusses governmental policies and actions. If you would like to make a difference in the study of global warming, this site can also give you the information you need to get involved. Source : Scout Report, February 21, 1997.

Hackers Close Down Defense Dept. Sites
The Pentagon shut down most of its world wide web sites December 30 after a computer hacker's break-in attempt damaged an Air Force Page. In all, over 80 web sites including a Gulf War Illness site, information sites on each of the military services, and sites providing news releases and military contract announcements were affected. The site damaged was an Air Force page that guides computer users to Air Force information available over the World Wide Web. The sites are expected to be operational again by the end of the year. Source : Detroit Free Press, December 31, 1996, p.4A; Lansing State Journal, December 31, 1996, p.3A.

HIV/AIDS: The Global Epidemic (UN/WHO)
http://www.unaids.org/highband/document/epidemio/situat96.html
U.S. Mirror Site:
http://www.us.unaids.org/highband/document/epidemio/situat96.html
Provided by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization, this fact sheet provides up to date information on the progress of the worldwide AIDS pandemic. It provides estimates as of December 1996 for new infections in 1996, people living with HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS-associated deaths in 1996, and cumulative AIDS information. It also contains a geographic table of AIDS-related information. It is connected to a much larger study, The Status and Trends of the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic, the result of a symposium held in July 1996 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Note that both the fact sheet and larger monograph may load very slowly due to the graphic design of the sites, which, while visually appealing, is a hindrance in the distribution of this important information. If this site looks more like HotWired than the United Nations, that is because it was designed by a member of the HotWired staff. In spite of that, the compelling content of the site is worth the wait. Source : Scout Report, December 6, 1996.

IDTF's Links to Foreign Governments
http://www.library.nwu.edu/govpub/idtf/foreign.html
IDTF's Links to Foreign Governments has been expanded to include official sites, mostly in English, for 46 countries. Europe is just about complete; Africa, Latin America and Asia will follow. Links are limited to resources likely to be of use to foreign and international documents librarians, i.e. foreign affairs, defence, financial, central government and statistical sites with a few exceptions. Source : Mike McCaffrey-Noviss, International and State Documents Librarian, Northwestern University Library, 1935 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208-2300; E-mail: mmccaff@nwu.edu; Telephone: (847) 491-2927 (Direct Line); Fax: (847) 491-8306, GOVDOC-L, February 28, 1997.

Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (UNCF)
http://www.unicef.org/graca/
In 1994, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed Graca Machel, a former Mozambican Education Minister, to study the impact of armed conflict on children in response to a call by the General Assembly for a detailed examination of the issue. This report presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the two-year study which included consultations with experts and officials from key regions, field visits, and interviews with the individuals affected. Source : Scout Report, January 10, 1997.

IMF Working Papers (1997+)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm
As of January, 1997, the International Monetary Fund has begun to provide full text (Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] format only) of its Working Papers. At present 17 papers are available, on such topics as India's saving performance, the effect labor market policies and growth fundamentals have on OECD countries, the Austrian pension system, and business cycles in Asia and Latin America, among others. Print copy price information and selected abstracts are available. As the IMF has produced an average of 127 Working Papers per year since 1991, this promises to be a major economic working paper repository. The IMF also provides other services from its home page, highlighted by its Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board--metadata records about economic, financial, and demographic data produced by some 27 countries at present, with 15 more expected soon. Source : Scout Report, February 28, 1997.

InfoSpace's Government Links and Search Engines
http://206.129.166.158/iui/index_gov.htm
Provides extensive links to federal, state, county, and municipal web sites, as well as providing search engines for identifying U.S. Senate and House officials, and federal, state, county, and municipal officials. Site provided by Carroll Publising.

International Labour Organization
http://www.ilo.org/
For the latest information about the International Labour Organization, go to its web site. Contains press releases, press kits, speeches, historical documents, fact sheets, etc. During February 1997, the ILO is sponsoring the Amsterdam Conference on Intolerable Forms of Child Labour.

Latin American Government Documents Project
http://lib1.library.cornell.edu/colldev/ladocshome.html
The Latin American Government Documents Project, provided by David Block of the Olin Library of Cornell University, attempts to "organize and describe the many Latin American official documents now appearing on the Internet." The site is organized by country and agency, within subject themes that include statistical sources, executive documents, national legislative documents, national judicial documents, and subnational documents. The contents of each site are briefly summarized. This is a very well organized, concise pointer site that should be very useful to interested Internauts. Note that most of the pointers are to Spanish language sites. Source : Scout Report, December 6, 1996.

Latin American Studies Online, Handbook of
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/
Current Journal Abbreviations:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/journals.html
Subject Terms (from Volume 50 onward):
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/subjects.html
The U.S. Library of Congress Hispanic Division has recently made all volumes from 1935 onward of its Handbook of Latin American Studies available for searching on the web. "The multidisciplinary Handbook alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Each year, more than 130 academics from around the world choose over 5,000 works for inclusion in the Handbook." Users can search by subject, author, or title in basic search mode, and there is also a more powerful expert searching mode available. Retrieval includes complete bibliographic information, and subject listings are linked to other citations related to that subject. This is an exhaustive, authoritative source of Latin American Studies information. Source : Scout Report, January 24, 1997.

Library of Congress Celebrates Inaugeration Online
Inaugurations in American Memory
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/inaug/inaug.html
Library of Congress Learning Page
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/
Today (January 13, 1997), the Library of Congress unveiled an online feature presentation celebrating the presidential inauguration. The presentation, Inaugurations in American Memory, highlights photographs, films, and oral histories of past presidential inaugurations as found in the over 500,000 historical primary sources available from the Library of Congress over the World Wide Web (http://www.loc.gov/). Feature presentations are a regularly updated offering on the Learning Page, a Library of Congress World Wide Web area specially designed for teachers, students, and lifelong learners. Source : Elizabeth L Brown, ebro@loc.gov PACS-P, January 15, 1997.

Library of Congress Experimental Web Catalog
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/catalog/
Library of Congress Information System (LOCIS)
http://lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/online.html
Though still under development, an experimental online public access catalog for the Library of Congress is now available, providing access to over 4.8 million records (out of 27 million) from the Library of Congress. Compared to LOCIS, LC's command-driven catalog, this new format is easier to navigate, allowing users to search by keyword, author, title, ISBN, and LC class searches, as well as limit by format, date, publisher, and language. An exciting new feature is the ability to sort results by date, title, or LC call number, either in ascending or descending order. Individual records are displayed in hypertext format, making it possible to jump to other works on the same subject, call number, or by same author, as well as to link to online texts and images, and view the MARC (MAchine Readable-Cataloging) formats of any record. Note that at this time help screens are in development and not yet available. Source : Scout Report, December 20, 1996.

Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html
Focuses on colonization, abolition, migrations, and the WPA. This rich collection of photographs, maps, and other original documents is also a preview of a 1998 exhibition on the impact of black history on the American national identity. Source : Newsweek, Cyberscope, March 3, 1997.

Liftoff to Space Exploration (NASA)
http://astro-2.msfc.nasa.gov/
Liftoff to Space Exploration is a creation of the Mission Operations Laboratory at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This site contains current news and events related to space exploration, as well as information on past, current, and future missions, and astronaut training, life in space, and trivia. This site contains a Kid's Space section, which addresses subjects such as weight on the moon and the Space Cadet Academy. There are also quizzes, games, and photos. The Academy section explores space science, the space shuttle, earth science, the Spacelab, Mir and the Russian Space Agency, etc. This site is geared toward students and space enthusiasts interested in further learning or keeping up with current news. Source : Scout Report, January 24, 1997.

Mars Pathfinder (NASA)
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/
Text Only Version:
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mpf/alltext.html
Mars Pathfinder, "one of the first NASA Discovery class missions," is slated to launch the week of December 2, 1996, with the goal of landing "a single vehicle with a microrover (Sojourner) and several instruments on the surface of Mars in 1997." At the NASA Pathfinder website, interested Internauts will be able to follow the flight and landing (scheduled for July 1997). In addition, the site contains information about mission objectives, images of Mars (including images of possible Pathfinder landing sites), information about the Sojourner Rover that will actually explore the planet, and a downloadable cutout model of Pathfinder for construction (under Education and Outreach--very large image files). Source : Scout Report, November 29, 1996.

(Michigan) Office of the State Registrar
http://www.mdmh.state.mi.us/PHA/OSR/Index.htm
The Office of the State Registrar and Division of Health Statistics is responsible for the collection, compilation, analysis, and publication of statistics about health and health-related matters. The web site now contains a 1995 state profile including birth and death statistics and selected cancer, mortality, natality, pregnancy, and health care statistics. Some tables also provide county level data. In addition, the Office of State Registrar has begun mounting application forms for its various vital records such as birth certificates available via the web site. The Office of the State Registar is a sub-agency of the Michigan Department of Community Health.

Michigan Tax Forms
http://mel.lib.mi.us/michigan/mitaxforms.html
The Michigan Department of Treasury in coopertion with the Michigan Electronic Library is providing access to Michigan tax forms. The forms are in Adobe's Portable Dcoument Format (PDF). You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the tax forms. Source : Debbie Gallagher, Government Information Specialist, Michigan Electronic Library, dgallag@umich.edu, MICHLIB-L, January 26, 1997. Note : URL change.
(Last checked 04/21/99)

Michigan's Tax Free Renaissance Zones
http://www.mjc.state.mi.us/mjc/rzone/rz00.html
Need information about Michigan's newly created Renaissance Zones? Check out this site provided by the Michigan Jobs Commission.

Military Specifications and Standards Index
http://www.dtic.mil/stinet/public-stinet/htgi/dodiss/
If you ever get requests for military specifications or standards, you may need to consult this online index.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://www.ed.gov/NCES/naep/
School librarians may be interested in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) website. Part of the U.S. Department of Education, the site includes access to NAEP publications and activities, and the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). NAEP is mandated by Congress to monitor continuously the knowledge, skills, and performance of the nation's children and youth. Under this legislation, NAEP is required to provide objective data about student performance at national, regional, and, on a trial basis, state levels. Source : ALAWON, Vol. 6, no. 13, February 28, 1997

National Biological Service
http://www.im.nbs.gov/
The U.S. Department of Interior's National Biological Service offers access to data on the status of the nation's ecosystems. The site contains sections on amphibians, butterflies, birds, and other animals; links to software packages designed for biological research; and information on how to design a program to monitor animals or plant life. Source : Chronicle of Higher Education, October 4, 1996, p.A26.

National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/
The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), located in Boulder, Colorado is a project of the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, and National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service. This site is an informational resource for glaciology, marine geology and geophysics, paleoclimatology, solar-terrestrial physics, and solid earth geophysics. The glaciology section is linked to the National Snow and Ice Data Center website, which offers resources for those interested in studying snow and ice and their relation to Earth systems. The other four sections contain data (often searchable), images, reports, publications and general information on a variety of areas such as bathymetry, ocean drilling/seafloor sediment/rock sample data, the geomagnetic field, solar and upper atmospheric data, global climate, heatflow, and much more. Source : Scout Report, January 17, 1997.

National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution)
http://www.si.edu/nmai/
The richest part of this land's heritage has an online home at the National Museum of the American Indian. All roads are good in cyberspace; but this is one you shouldn't miss. USA Today, Hot Site, December 10, 1997.

The Observatorium (NASA)
http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/
The Observatorium is a cooperative project among NASA's Information Infrastructure Technology & Applications Program, BDM International, and West Virginia University. This site currently offers four new features: Applications of Satellite Data, Fun and Games, Tools & Data, and the Birth of Stars; it also features a new observation each week, as well as providing current headlines in space exploration. It also has its own Sites Reviewed and Search sections that allow for further and more direct exploration into the topic of your choice. NASA's educational projects (categorized by grade level and topic), NASA's Educational Outreach Programs, and other NASA-sponsored projects are discussed. A reference section offers educational articles and tutorials. The Image Gallery contains many stunning pictures of the universe, solar system, moon, spacecraft, and more. Source : Scout Report, January 10, 1997.

Office of Personnel Management
http://www.opm.gov/
The Office of Personnel Management site provides a handy way to keep tabs on federal government job openings and pay tables. Everything from summer work to professional careers. Source : USA Today, Hot Site, January 31-February 2, 1997.

"On My Mind: Embracing Government Information"
An article by Charles Seavey, appearing in American Libraries, December 1996, p. 33. Note: If you don't have back issues of American Libraries, try interlibrary loan.

Online Resources on Retirement and Financial Planning (AoA)
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/pages/finplan.html
Compiled by Saadia Greenberg, Administration on Aging (Revised: December 16, 1996). The purpose of this resource is to provide the public with a convenient set of links to online resources for financial and retirement planning. The Administration on Aging, a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is concerned with informing the public about how they can better prepare for a more financially secure retirement.

Patent Searching from IBM and Optipat
http://www.ibm.com/patents
USPTO and CNIDR Patents Database
http://patents.uspto.gov/patbib_index.html
IBM and Optipat, Inc. have made a searchable US Patent Database available on the web. Coverage is from 1971 to the end of 1996 at present (IBM intends to update it regularly), and retrieval includes bibliographic information about the patent, claims, reference, and abstract information. In addition, for patents since 1987, images of the patent are available. IBM intends to add images from 1974-86 patents early in 1997. Users can view the images, or order the patents online from Optipat. Patent number searching, as well as Boolean and field searching are provided. The provision of claims and detailed drawing image information distinguishes this site from the Patent and Trademark Office/CNIDR (Center For Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval) patent search site. Of course, as might be expected, both retrieval and relevance rankings of these two search engines differ, so patent searchers may want to use them in combination. Source : Scout Report, January 10, 1997.

Pentagon Book Store
http://www.booksdc.com
The Pentagon Book Store is now open to the public! The store specializes in titles on military operations and strategy, travel, languages, biographies, history of government affairs, and political intrigue. Source : Internet Connection, January 1997, Vol. 3, No. 1, p.4.

Portrait of Black Chicago (NARA)
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/americanimage/chicago/white1.html
Portrait of Black Chicago, a new exhibit from the National Archives and Records Administration, contains nineteen annotated photos by John H. White, a Chicago newspaper photographer, taken for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUAMERICA project in the 1970s. The photos provide a "slice of life" of African American Chicago in the early 1970s. Source : Scout Report, February 28, 1997.

The Presidents' Summit for America's Future
http://www.citizenservice.org
http://www.phillynews.com/packages/summit/
The Summit is being co-sponsored by The Points of Light Foundation and the Corporation for National Service. The Philadelphia newspapers -- the Inquirer and the Daily News -- are also managing a web site with information about the summit and will be maintaining it through the actual meeting. Source : Debra Erikson, The Points of Light Foundation, Eriksonda@aol.com, TALK-AMPHILREV@TAB.COM, February 5, 1997.

Pursuing Excellence: A Study of US Eighth-Grade Mathematics and Science Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Achievement in International Context
http://www.ed.gov/NCES/timss/
This study, recently released by the US Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, claims to be "the most thorough international study of math and science education ever conducted." The report's main conclusions include: "The content of US eighth-grade mathematics classes is not as challenging as that of other countries, and topic coverage is not as focused; and evidence suggests that US teachers do not receive as much practical training and daily support as their German and Japanese colleagues." In addition to the report of initial findings (in HTML and Adobe Acrobat .pdf versions), there is a news release from the Department of Education and information about a videotape classroom study that accompanied the main study. This is the first of a series of reports that will cover "US mathematics and science education for fourth, [eighth] and twelfth grade students in an international context." Source : Scout Report, December 13, 1996.

The Resource Directory for Older People (AoA)
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/resource.html
This directory is intended to serve a wide audience including older people and their families, health and legal professionals, social service providers, librarians, researchers, and others with an interest in the field of aging. The directory contains names, addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers of organizations which provide information and other resources on matters relevant to the needs of older persons. It is a cooperative effort between the Administration on Aging and the National Institute on Aging.

School Directory Info
http://www.mde.state.mi.us/reports/scm/
Need an address for a school, a phone number, a principal's name, or information about the grade levels taught at a specific school? Try the State of Michigan School Code Master web site. Provides data for all the school districts in the state, plus intermediate school districts. Courtesy of the Michigan Department of Education.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1995 [PDF]
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1995 is produced for the U.S. Department of Justice by the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center at SUNY-Albany. Its six sections are searchable and browsable and consist of 654 tables and 5 figures of mostly national data time series of varying lengths, in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. Sections can be downloaded for printing in their entirety or individual tables can be printed (a real plus as individual table size is usually less than 10KB.) The data is compiled from over 100 sources (annotated with selected links). Source : Scout Report, November 29, 1996.

State of the Union Addresses--Past and Present
1997 State of the Union Address [RealAudio]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/SOU97/
Text Only
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/SOU97/index-plain.html
State of the Union Addresses 1934-96
gopher://www.polisci.nwu.edu:70/
[select: State of the Union Archive]
Annual Messages/State of the Nation Messages 1790-1836
http://www.let.rug.nl/~welling/usa/presidents/addresses.html
President Clinton's State of the Union Message, delivered February 4, 1997, is available in both text and RealAudio formats at the White House web site. For Internauts interested in historical perspective, a selected archive of State of the Union messages of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with a complete archive of all messages 1946-96 is available at the Northwestern University Political Science gopher. And Annual Messages/State of the Nation Messages are available for the years 1790-1836 (Washington-Jackson) at George Welling's magnificent "From Revolution to Reconstruction and What Happened Afterwards" site. Source: Scout Report, February 7,1997.

Supreme Court Opinions 1937-Present
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html
Findlaw has recently made an excellent site even better by adding a browsable and searchable archive of US Supreme Court opinions from 1937 to the present. Cases can be browsed by volume number or year, and searched by citation, title and the full text of the opinions. The Findlaw opinions database, while still a "public beta," offers two enhancements over the Fedworld/FLITE Supreme Court Decisions Database (discussed in the September 26, 1996 issue of the Scout Report). One is that it runs from 1937 to the present, whereas FLITE runs 1937-1975. The other is that each case is presented in hypertext format, which allows linking from case to case, and thus invites users to follow along with the Justices' reasoning. Source : Scout Report, January 31, 1997.

Tax Forms, U.S. and State [PDF]
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/govdocs/taxes.html
As thoughts in the US turn to taxes (April 15 is just around the corner), Mary Jane Ledvina of the Louisiana State University regional government depository library has provided a simple, effective pointers page to downloadable tax forms. Included are federal tax forms and those for 43 states. Of course, available forms vary by state. Most forms are in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. This is a simple, crisply designed page that should save time, although probably not headaches. Source : Scout Report, January 31, 1997.

Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
http://www.nps.gov/jeff/arch-home/index.htm
Have you ever visited the Arch in St. Louis, Missouri? This web site, sponsored by the National Park Service, allows you to take a virtual tour of the Museum of Westward Expansion. Explore the world of the American Indians and the 19th century pioneers who helped shape the history of the American West. Listen to audio clips of Thomas Jefferson, William Clark, a buffalo soldier, and an overlander. Source : USA Today, Hot Site, February 14-16, 1997.

Tiger Mapping Service--US Census Bureau
http://tiger.census.gov
A new version of the Census Bureau's Tiger Mapping Service (TMS) is now on the prowl. Users enter city and state or zipcode information, and choose from among the matches from the Census Bureau's database of places (for example, cities, towns, and regions may have the same name). The maps returned are clear, detailed (though street names are not included at this time), and precise. Why use this service instead of one of the others freely available (such as Mapquest, described in the August 16, 1996 Scout Report)? Because of TMS's extraordinary flexibility. In addition to standard atlas features, TMS offers access to a good deal of the 1990 Census's data, which can be plotted onto the maps as well. Most impressively, since the maps and accompanying data are available in the public domain, website creators can make a cgi-bin link to the TMS server that will return a customized map, complete with multicolored pins and labels, for placement on a web page. Source : Scout Report, January 31, 1997.

TRAC ATF Home Page
http://trac.syr.edu/tracatf/
This Web Site has been established by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) to provide the public with detailed comparative information about how firearms laws are enforced by the ATF and the United States Justice Department in different sections of the country. TRAC is a non-partisan, non-profit, tax exempt data research organization associated with Syracuse University. Includes background information about the ATF, the text of statutes it enforces, information on crime and violence related to fireams in the U.S., and statistics on prosecutions and convictions.

TRAC DEA Home Page
http://trac.syr.edu/tracdea/
This Web Site has been established by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) to provide the public with detailed comparative information about how the criminal provisions of the federal drug laws are enforced by the DEA and the United States Justice Department in different sections of the country. TRAC is a non-partisan, non-profit, tax exempt data research organization associated with Syracuse University. Includes information on drug enforcement in the U.S., including background information about the DEA, the text of statutes it enforces, and statistics on prosecutions and convictions.

Uniform Crime Reports 1990-1993
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/socsci/crime/index.html
Uniform Crime Reports 1990-93, from the University of Virginia Social Sciences Data Center, is a searchable dataset from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that allows users to retrieve county level data for arrests (Part I and Part II offenses) and reported crimes (Part I offenses only). Users choose area, time, and crime variables to submit. Data can be retrieved on the screen or as comma-delimited files from an FTP location. Source : Scout Report, November 29, 1996.

UN Info Quest (UN-I-QUE)
http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/unique/index.html
UN-I-QUE (UN Info Quest) is a ready reference file created by the United Nations/Specialized Agencies Reference Desk of the Dag Hammarskj�ld Library to respond to frequently asked questions. It is a database designed to provide quick access to document symbols/sales numbers for UN materials (1946 onwards). It does not give full bibliographic details nor does it replace existing bibliographic databases (UNBIS, UNBIS Plus on CD-ROM) produced by the Library. UN-I-QUE focuses upon documents and publications of a recurrent nature: annual/sessional reports of committees/commissions; monographic series; journals; annual publications; reports periodically/irregularly issued; reports of major conferences; statements in the General Debate; etc. Information within each record is presented in reverse chronological order to facilitate identification of the most recent data.

United Nations Invasion Tracking Site
http://krug.org/unit/menu.html
Remember the movie RED DAWN? UN troops tried to take over the U.S. This site spoofs such sentiments, reporting on UN sightings all over the U.S. My personal favorite : "UN Troops Fly UFOs in California".

USA Counties 1996
http://govinfo.kerr.orst.edu/usaco-stateis.html
OSU Government Information Sharing Project
http://govinfo.kerr.orst.edu/
Oregon State's well known Government Information Sharing Project has recently added the US Census Bureau's USA Counties 1996 database to its arsenal of interactive demographic, economic, and educational databases. USA Counties 1996 allows the user to choose from nearly 3,500 variables in 26 major subject categories from age to health to wholesale trade. Single county profiles can be retrieved for multiple variables; conversely, the user can retrieve multiple county, single variable profiles. Time coverage varies, and this database is meant to provide a "snapshot" of a county rather than a detailed time series, but the amount of information and the fineness of geographical detail make USA Counties 96 unique. Unfortunately, there is currently no provision for downloading retrieved information in formats that allow the statistics to be further manipulated. Source: Scout Report, February 7, 1997.

Where in the U.S. are Carmen, San Diego, etc.?
http://www-nmd.usgs.gov/www/gnis/
Now you can get fast and accurate information on Carmen, San Diego, and almost 2 million other domestic geographic names, via the new World Wide Web site for the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System. Using the data browser is easy. Users are prompted to enter the name of a geographic feature, and system responds with listings for feature type, state, county, latitude, longitude, and the name of the 7.5-minute USGS topographic map on which the feature is located. Users can ask the system to search all records for the nation or to confine the search to a name within a single state or feature type, such as streams or populated places. Source: Computers in Libraries, February 1996, p.54.

Where to Write for Vital Records? (NCHS)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/howto/w2w/w2welcom.htm
The National Center for Health Statistics produces an up-to-date reference resource entitled Where to Write for Vital Records. This handy guide contains information on how to obtain certified copies of birth, death, marriage, and divorce records from the vital statistics offices for each State and territory, including the District of Columbia, New York City, American Samoa, the Canal Zone, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1996 World Factbook (CIA)
www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
The 1996 and 1997 World Factbook are no longer available on the web. Click here for The 1998 World Factbook. Please update your links and bookmarks to the new URL (www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html).