- Email: [email protected]
Government information xchange
338
Reviews
Guide to the Presidency, 2nd ed. Edited by Michael Nelson. Quarterly, Inc., 1996. 1706~. ISBN: 1-5680-2018-X. $199.95.
Washington,
DC: Congressional
This edition of Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency is a two-volume publication that takes a very comprehensive look at the presidency of the United States in all its facets. As an update to the first edition, this volume brings the presidential coverage up-to-date through much of President Clinton’s first term, and discusses the budget and economic problems of the 1980s and 1990s as well as the challenges brought about by the end of the Cold War. The first edition was one very large volume. The new edition is now in two more manageable volumes. Each volume has a complete table of contents and a complete, 47 page index. Each chapter has end notes and a bibliography of additional sources. The volumes are divided into seven main parts with two appendices that are referred to as reference materials. The first volume contains four parts and the second volume contains three parts and the reference materials. Part I covers the origins and development of the presidency. Part II discusses the selection and removal of the President. Part III focuses on the powers of the President. Part IV covers the topics of the President, the public and the development of political parties. Part V discusses the White House, its history, and the development of the executive branch. Part VI deals with the idea of the President as the chief executive and his role in the federal government as it relates to the Congress, the Supreme Court and the development of the federal bureaucracy. Part VII contains biographies and pictures of the Presidents and Vice Presidents. There is a final section that contains a variety of reference materials. Appendix A contains 44 documents ranging from the Declaration of Independence to Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union Address. The selection seems to include what the editor perceived to be the most important presidential documents. The section introduction refers to them as the top 40 documents. Most are from the twentieth century and have been edited because it was not the purpose of the volume to provide the complete text but to provide the part of the document that demonstrates a particular idea or event of importance in the development of the presidency. That information can be found in other sources. Appendix B contains information in tabular and graphical format, ranging from a list of the Presidents and Vice Presidents to time lines, to pertinent information about and events during each administration. One table of particular interest was the one that contained information about presidential cabinet members and other officials. A second notable table is the one that covers the political party nominees from 1831 to 1992. Minority candidates are included in this table. There is also a listing of sources for illustrations. These volumes are well written and very readable. Each chapter was prepared by a different individual, but due to the nature of the subjects this did not interfere with the flow of the volume. Because of the complexity of the office, particular facets were discussed in more than one chapter. This was usually referenced in the text so it is easy to find related materials. The authors used numerous pictures, graphs, facsimiles and other illustrations to make the work more useful and interesting. The authors made judicious use of boxes or sidebars to highlight important materials. Each chapter has its own select bibliography of additional sources. These are a gold mine of additional information on the U.S. presidency. The notes following each chapter provide not only credit for works cited but also outline additional information and sources of information about the subject. These two volumes provide excellent coverage of the presidency of the United States and its many facets as it has developed over the last 200-plus years. Owners of the first edition should consider updating their holdings; the information that has been added would make it worth the price. This work is a recommended purchase for all libraries, especially academic and school libraries. JO ANN BEEZLEY Government Documents Librarian Pittsburg State University Pittsburg, KS 66762 USA Government Information Xchange. Washington, www.info.gov
DC: General
Services Administration.
http://
Reviews
339
“Government Information Xchange” is a World Wide Web (WWW) site produced and maintained by the General Services Administration’s Center for Emerging Technologies. The opening screen features a pull-down menu of topic choices such as “Purchase of Forfeited Property,” “Passport/Visa,” and “Tax Information.” These links take one directly to the relevant agency site, e g. the Bureau of Consular Affairs for information about obtaining a visa. A large rectangular button at the top right corner of the screen labeled “Customer Service” leads to a variety of agency mission statements and customer service standards and commitments. The remainder of the opening screen consists of three rows of four icons each with labels for the following categories: “Federal Directory,” “Federal Yellow Pages,” “Search, ” “State and Local Government,” “Intergovernmental Collaboration,” “Electronic Shopping,” “ International Organizations,” Foreign Government,” “What’ s New,” “What’s Hot,” “Feedback” and “Help.” The “Federal Directory” category contains a combination of links to specific traditional government information sources such as the Commerce Business Daily and the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, which are now available on the WWW, and links to newly-developed WWW sites such as the GSA’s federal law directory (“FEDLAW”) and the Government Information Locator Service (GILS). Subcategories for the legislative, judicial and executive branches lead one to various sites such as the House of Representatives and Senate Home Pages, the White House and federal agency sites and the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. The “Federal Yellow Pages” category features an alphabetical listing of subject categories such as “Applications/Forms,” “ Consumer Information,” and “Science and Technology” in a left-side frame. The right-side frame contains either links to specific forms such as passport application forms or the National Science Foundation Grant Application Form or a further subject breakdown such as “Environment” under “Science and Technology.” These links lead primarily to agency-level sites and appear to have been selected as sources of information about agencies’ publishing programs or online database accessibility through an agency. The default when one selects “Federal Yellow Pages” from the opening screen is to the “Applications/Forms” subcategory. The “State and Local Government” category is further subdivided into four categories: (1) “U.S. State and Local Government Information,” (2) “State and Local Government Yellow Pages,” (3) “Statewide/Intergovernmental Projects,” and (4) “Other State and Local Government Resources.” The “U.S. State and Local Government Information” category features an attractive image map of the 50 states and the District of Columbia as well as an alphabetical listing of state links for users of non-graphical browsers. Clicking on a state image, or text link, leads one directly to that state’s official homepage, e.g. http://state.ma.us or http:l/state.wv.us. The “State and Local Yellow Pages” allows one to search for state sources by subject category via the National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE) Home Page or for local sources by subject category via the “Local Government Home Page,” a collaborative effort of the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the International City/ County Management Association and Public Technology, Inc. The “Other State and Local Government Resources” contains links to sources such as the WWW sites for the National Center for State Courts, Council of State Governments, CityNet and FinanceNet. The default from the opening screen leads to the “U.S. State and Local Government Information” category. The “International Organizations” category contains a selective list of 14 IGO WWW sites arranged in alphabetical order. Examples of linked sites include the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Health Organization. The “Foreign Government Information” category contains direct links to “The Electronic Embassy Page” and “The Embassy Page.” Both of these sites strive to make use of the Internet to improve communications between diplomatic staffs and the business communities of the United States and other countries. The “Foreign Government Information” category also contains a selective list of foreign countries which then lead to agencies, legislatures or research centers based in those countries. The “Electronic Shopping” category contains links to sites such as “GSA Advantage,” the “Government Shopping Mall” (produced by the Information Technology and Education Center, a unit within the California Department of General Services) and the “Air Force Country Store.” “Government Information Xchange” demonstrates the primary difficulty with organizing a WWW site of government information-how to make an accessible arrangement of diverse source material which has widely different user applications. “Government Information Xchange” would appear to be admirably geared for use by an inexperienced library patron or
340
Reviews
home computer user who simply wants to know how to get a tax or copyright form from the Internet or discover whether any federally owned surplus real property is available in his or her area. If this is the intent of the site, it is most successful in categories such as the “Federal Yellow Pages, which defaults directly to some of the more frequently requested federal forms and the “State and Local Government Information” category, which is uncluttered visually and easily leads users to some substantive WWW sites. Other parts of the site, notably the legislative subcategory of the “Federal Directory” category, are poorly organized and not intuitive at all, particularly for a novice user. The opening screen pull-down menu contains approximately 30 entries in no discernable order. It appears to be in order by anticipated frequency of topic interest, but, if so, it is hard to understand why a topic like “Consumer Information” is buried near the bottom of the list. The overall style and appearance of “Government Information Xchange” is pleasant and effective. An alternative “text-only” button is provided and many screens conclude with a message reading “Can’t find what you are looking for? Try our search engine,” with a hotlink to the search screen. In addition to the local search engine, direct links are provided to “Pathway Indexer, ” “Alta Vista Search, ” “Infoseek Search” and others. The use of frames in the “Federal yellow Pages” category is particularly well done. This reviewer’s only quibble is with the “automatic routing device” that this site employs. Clicking on a link to a site outside of the “Government Information Xchange” pages presents an intermediate screen indicating that the user is leaving the site and going to another site. The URL for the site that is being linked to also appears. This seems unnecessary. Users of even minimal experience know that the whole point of many pages is to connect to other pages. a solid effort to provide direct links to “Government Information Xchange” represents sources of information to answer the kinds of practical questions that often confound depository librarians and depository users. Questions about forms and applications, contracts and bids, forfeited property, land-for-sale and so forth are often not easily answered with depository sources and usually result in a referral to an agency where the patron may or may not successfully fulfill their information needs. The use of the WWW to facilitate an improvement of this kind of exchange between agencies and citizens is a highly laudable goal. KEVIN FREDE-ITE Documents & Microforms Charles C. Wise Jr. Library West Virginia University P.O. Box 6069 Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 USA
Head, Government
Historical Dictionary of Aid and Development Organizations. International Organizations Series; no. 10. By Guy Arnold. Lanham, MD & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996. 196~. ISBN 0-8108-3040-X. LCCN 9512561. $32.50. Aimed at “students, researchers, and interested lay readers” (p. VII), this publication proposes to provide an overview of the history of the concept of development aid provided by rich, developed nations, constituting the North, to poor nations, usually referred to as the South. The Historical Dictionary of Aid and Development Organizations consists of 177 alphabetically arranged entries covering three main areas: major aid providing countries and organizations, important conferences and conventions, and fundamental concepts and issues. The volume outlines and defines the historical development and presents the framework of international development aid from the end of WWII to the mid-1990s. Preceding the dictionary section is a list of “Abbreviations and Acronyms,” a “List of Dictionary Entries,” and an introductory essay outlining the emergence and growth of the NorthSouth development aid relationship. Also included is a select bibliography providing references to more specific sources on topics like the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/International Monetary Fund (IBRD/IMF), OPEC, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), European Economic Community/European Union (EEC/ EU), United Nations (UN), Africa, Agriculture and Food, and major aid providing countries
Reviews
Guide to the Presidency, 2nd ed. Edited by Michael Nelson. Quarterly, Inc., 1996. 1706~. ISBN: 1-5680-2018-X. $199.95.
Washington,
DC: Congressional
This edition of Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency is a two-volume publication that takes a very comprehensive look at the presidency of the United States in all its facets. As an update to the first edition, this volume brings the presidential coverage up-to-date through much of President Clinton’s first term, and discusses the budget and economic problems of the 1980s and 1990s as well as the challenges brought about by the end of the Cold War. The first edition was one very large volume. The new edition is now in two more manageable volumes. Each volume has a complete table of contents and a complete, 47 page index. Each chapter has end notes and a bibliography of additional sources. The volumes are divided into seven main parts with two appendices that are referred to as reference materials. The first volume contains four parts and the second volume contains three parts and the reference materials. Part I covers the origins and development of the presidency. Part II discusses the selection and removal of the President. Part III focuses on the powers of the President. Part IV covers the topics of the President, the public and the development of political parties. Part V discusses the White House, its history, and the development of the executive branch. Part VI deals with the idea of the President as the chief executive and his role in the federal government as it relates to the Congress, the Supreme Court and the development of the federal bureaucracy. Part VII contains biographies and pictures of the Presidents and Vice Presidents. There is a final section that contains a variety of reference materials. Appendix A contains 44 documents ranging from the Declaration of Independence to Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union Address. The selection seems to include what the editor perceived to be the most important presidential documents. The section introduction refers to them as the top 40 documents. Most are from the twentieth century and have been edited because it was not the purpose of the volume to provide the complete text but to provide the part of the document that demonstrates a particular idea or event of importance in the development of the presidency. That information can be found in other sources. Appendix B contains information in tabular and graphical format, ranging from a list of the Presidents and Vice Presidents to time lines, to pertinent information about and events during each administration. One table of particular interest was the one that contained information about presidential cabinet members and other officials. A second notable table is the one that covers the political party nominees from 1831 to 1992. Minority candidates are included in this table. There is also a listing of sources for illustrations. These volumes are well written and very readable. Each chapter was prepared by a different individual, but due to the nature of the subjects this did not interfere with the flow of the volume. Because of the complexity of the office, particular facets were discussed in more than one chapter. This was usually referenced in the text so it is easy to find related materials. The authors used numerous pictures, graphs, facsimiles and other illustrations to make the work more useful and interesting. The authors made judicious use of boxes or sidebars to highlight important materials. Each chapter has its own select bibliography of additional sources. These are a gold mine of additional information on the U.S. presidency. The notes following each chapter provide not only credit for works cited but also outline additional information and sources of information about the subject. These two volumes provide excellent coverage of the presidency of the United States and its many facets as it has developed over the last 200-plus years. Owners of the first edition should consider updating their holdings; the information that has been added would make it worth the price. This work is a recommended purchase for all libraries, especially academic and school libraries. JO ANN BEEZLEY Government Documents Librarian Pittsburg State University Pittsburg, KS 66762 USA Government Information Xchange. Washington, www.info.gov
DC: General
Services Administration.
http://
Reviews
339
“Government Information Xchange” is a World Wide Web (WWW) site produced and maintained by the General Services Administration’s Center for Emerging Technologies. The opening screen features a pull-down menu of topic choices such as “Purchase of Forfeited Property,” “Passport/Visa,” and “Tax Information.” These links take one directly to the relevant agency site, e g. the Bureau of Consular Affairs for information about obtaining a visa. A large rectangular button at the top right corner of the screen labeled “Customer Service” leads to a variety of agency mission statements and customer service standards and commitments. The remainder of the opening screen consists of three rows of four icons each with labels for the following categories: “Federal Directory,” “Federal Yellow Pages,” “Search, ” “State and Local Government,” “Intergovernmental Collaboration,” “Electronic Shopping,” “ International Organizations,” Foreign Government,” “What’ s New,” “What’s Hot,” “Feedback” and “Help.” The “Federal Directory” category contains a combination of links to specific traditional government information sources such as the Commerce Business Daily and the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, which are now available on the WWW, and links to newly-developed WWW sites such as the GSA’s federal law directory (“FEDLAW”) and the Government Information Locator Service (GILS). Subcategories for the legislative, judicial and executive branches lead one to various sites such as the House of Representatives and Senate Home Pages, the White House and federal agency sites and the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. The “Federal Yellow Pages” category features an alphabetical listing of subject categories such as “Applications/Forms,” “ Consumer Information,” and “Science and Technology” in a left-side frame. The right-side frame contains either links to specific forms such as passport application forms or the National Science Foundation Grant Application Form or a further subject breakdown such as “Environment” under “Science and Technology.” These links lead primarily to agency-level sites and appear to have been selected as sources of information about agencies’ publishing programs or online database accessibility through an agency. The default when one selects “Federal Yellow Pages” from the opening screen is to the “Applications/Forms” subcategory. The “State and Local Government” category is further subdivided into four categories: (1) “U.S. State and Local Government Information,” (2) “State and Local Government Yellow Pages,” (3) “Statewide/Intergovernmental Projects,” and (4) “Other State and Local Government Resources.” The “U.S. State and Local Government Information” category features an attractive image map of the 50 states and the District of Columbia as well as an alphabetical listing of state links for users of non-graphical browsers. Clicking on a state image, or text link, leads one directly to that state’s official homepage, e.g. http://state.ma.us or http:l/state.wv.us. The “State and Local Yellow Pages” allows one to search for state sources by subject category via the National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE) Home Page or for local sources by subject category via the “Local Government Home Page,” a collaborative effort of the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the International City/ County Management Association and Public Technology, Inc. The “Other State and Local Government Resources” contains links to sources such as the WWW sites for the National Center for State Courts, Council of State Governments, CityNet and FinanceNet. The default from the opening screen leads to the “U.S. State and Local Government Information” category. The “International Organizations” category contains a selective list of 14 IGO WWW sites arranged in alphabetical order. Examples of linked sites include the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Health Organization. The “Foreign Government Information” category contains direct links to “The Electronic Embassy Page” and “The Embassy Page.” Both of these sites strive to make use of the Internet to improve communications between diplomatic staffs and the business communities of the United States and other countries. The “Foreign Government Information” category also contains a selective list of foreign countries which then lead to agencies, legislatures or research centers based in those countries. The “Electronic Shopping” category contains links to sites such as “GSA Advantage,” the “Government Shopping Mall” (produced by the Information Technology and Education Center, a unit within the California Department of General Services) and the “Air Force Country Store.” “Government Information Xchange” demonstrates the primary difficulty with organizing a WWW site of government information-how to make an accessible arrangement of diverse source material which has widely different user applications. “Government Information Xchange” would appear to be admirably geared for use by an inexperienced library patron or
340
Reviews
home computer user who simply wants to know how to get a tax or copyright form from the Internet or discover whether any federally owned surplus real property is available in his or her area. If this is the intent of the site, it is most successful in categories such as the “Federal Yellow Pages, which defaults directly to some of the more frequently requested federal forms and the “State and Local Government Information” category, which is uncluttered visually and easily leads users to some substantive WWW sites. Other parts of the site, notably the legislative subcategory of the “Federal Directory” category, are poorly organized and not intuitive at all, particularly for a novice user. The opening screen pull-down menu contains approximately 30 entries in no discernable order. It appears to be in order by anticipated frequency of topic interest, but, if so, it is hard to understand why a topic like “Consumer Information” is buried near the bottom of the list. The overall style and appearance of “Government Information Xchange” is pleasant and effective. An alternative “text-only” button is provided and many screens conclude with a message reading “Can’t find what you are looking for? Try our search engine,” with a hotlink to the search screen. In addition to the local search engine, direct links are provided to “Pathway Indexer, ” “Alta Vista Search, ” “Infoseek Search” and others. The use of frames in the “Federal yellow Pages” category is particularly well done. This reviewer’s only quibble is with the “automatic routing device” that this site employs. Clicking on a link to a site outside of the “Government Information Xchange” pages presents an intermediate screen indicating that the user is leaving the site and going to another site. The URL for the site that is being linked to also appears. This seems unnecessary. Users of even minimal experience know that the whole point of many pages is to connect to other pages. a solid effort to provide direct links to “Government Information Xchange” represents sources of information to answer the kinds of practical questions that often confound depository librarians and depository users. Questions about forms and applications, contracts and bids, forfeited property, land-for-sale and so forth are often not easily answered with depository sources and usually result in a referral to an agency where the patron may or may not successfully fulfill their information needs. The use of the WWW to facilitate an improvement of this kind of exchange between agencies and citizens is a highly laudable goal. KEVIN FREDE-ITE Documents & Microforms Charles C. Wise Jr. Library West Virginia University P.O. Box 6069 Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 USA
Head, Government
Historical Dictionary of Aid and Development Organizations. International Organizations Series; no. 10. By Guy Arnold. Lanham, MD & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996. 196~. ISBN 0-8108-3040-X. LCCN 9512561. $32.50. Aimed at “students, researchers, and interested lay readers” (p. VII), this publication proposes to provide an overview of the history of the concept of development aid provided by rich, developed nations, constituting the North, to poor nations, usually referred to as the South. The Historical Dictionary of Aid and Development Organizations consists of 177 alphabetically arranged entries covering three main areas: major aid providing countries and organizations, important conferences and conventions, and fundamental concepts and issues. The volume outlines and defines the historical development and presents the framework of international development aid from the end of WWII to the mid-1990s. Preceding the dictionary section is a list of “Abbreviations and Acronyms,” a “List of Dictionary Entries,” and an introductory essay outlining the emergence and growth of the NorthSouth development aid relationship. Also included is a select bibliography providing references to more specific sources on topics like the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/International Monetary Fund (IBRD/IMF), OPEC, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), European Economic Community/European Union (EEC/ EU), United Nations (UN), Africa, Agriculture and Food, and major aid providing countries