Firms Push for a More Searchable Federal Web by Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post (Dec 11)
Much of public information from governments in the United States is not indexed by the major search engines. Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt may be able to change that in his newposition as an "informal advisor" to President-elect Barack Obama.
For example: "A person using one of the search engines, for example, can't find Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against a given company, can't discover the picture of a specific ancient Egyptian artifact at the Smithsonian and can't search by name for the details of a Vietnam War casualty. "
But - searchers note this - "EPA enforcement actions can be found through a portal on the agency's site, details on Egyptian artifacts can be found through a search of the National Museum of Natural History and details of a Vietnam War casualty may be found by searching the National Archives site. ".
It is mainly because the data is stored in a database, accessible only by posting a query directly.
Posted by Gwen at December 12, 2008 04:58 PM