Web White & Blue 2000

With the advent of Campaign 2000, Lockwood Library's government documents librarian, Ed Herman, has pulled together a variety of links related to the presidential election at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/lml/govdocsubj/election2000.html.

For example, Herman highlights the home pages of the Democratic National Committee, the Green Party, the Reform Party and the Republican Party, as well as a metasite of third-party pages. He also includes an interesting and fun section entitled, "Who best reflects my views?" Here he lists two sites-electionguide2000 and SpeakOut.com-that offer undecided voters-or decided voters who are curious-the option of completing an online questionnaire. The questionnaire provides the opportunity to delineate one's views on such topics as abortion, gun control, the death penalty, campaign reform, social security and foreign policy. The site then rates the presidential candidates according to how closely they do and do not share one's opinions.

Herman also features Web White & Blue , a non-partisan, not-for-profit site sponsored by the Markle Foundation that provides high-quality, Web-based political information with the goal of enhancing voter participation this election season. The centerpiece of the site, "The Rolling Cyber Debate," will commence on Oct. 1 and continue through Election Day. Although not directly affiliated with the Commission on Presidential Debates, the aim of the "cyber debate" is to serve as a complement to the traditional televised debates. It will enable each candidate's campaign staff to have an opportunity to continue debating, as well as to introduce new topics to thrash out.

In the meantime, Web White & Blue 2000 offers plenty of election coverage by highlighting news and commentary from its 17 charter sites, including ABCnews.com, CNN.com/allpolitics, NetNoir, NYTimes.com, PBS.Online and USAToday.com. It also features links to non-profit agencies with an interest in getting out the vote, including YVote2000, Rock the Vote, Generation Net and The Vanishing Voter Project, as well as links to live chats on election-related topics.

Certainly, it never has been more effortless to follow a presidential election. Or, as the creators of the Web White & Blue 2000 proclaim, "Democracy just got easier."

-Gemma DeVinney and Don Hartman,University Libraries