Federal Register becomes 'web friendly'

The Federal Register is one of those essential 'Bibles' needed every day by lawyers, librarians, lobbyists and interest groups who want to find out what the federal government is doing. It's a must read for anyone in business with the federal government, and even anyone interested in what the government is planning to do or already doing.

In the past, a magnifying glass was needed to read its tiny print on thousands of pages, or a roadmap to access its cumbersome website that went online in 1994. Now, however, it has become much easier to access the Federal Register. The essential newspaper of the executive branch is now available on Data.gov in XML, with archives dating back to 2000.

"In much the same way that newspapers have looked at making content more accessible by changing the print and typeface, we can now do the same thing by making the Federal Register available such that people can manipulate it and customize it and reuse the content to make the information even more accessible," Beth Noveck, director of the White House Open Government Initiative, tells the Washington Post.

The new format will make it easier for users inside and outside the government to find information without having to wade through volumes of unrelated material. Someone monitoring the impact of federal regulations on his neighborhood, for instance, might visit an independent website that allows him to search the Register's items by state, county and Zip code.

"It makes it much easier to follow a specific topic area or look at specific regulations from a specific agency or search within a geographic area," said John Wonderlich, policy director of the Sunlight Foundation, an open-government advocacy group.

Mary Alice Baish, director of government relations for the American Association of Law Libraries, said that the new format makes it possible for law libraries to use the data for research by law professors, and that members are "delighted" about the move. "This is a win-win situation for business, the regulatory community and consumers," she said.

For more on the Web-friendly Federal Register:
- see this Washington Post article

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