The new FirstGov Web site http://www.firstgov.gov attempts to "provide the public with easy, one-stop access to all online U.S. federal government resources." The challenge of developing FirstGov-taken on by Eric Brewer of the Inktomi Corp. just a few months ago-is to provide searchers with information by subject, rather than by government agency. In other words, we all know the federal government provides vast amounts of information on a huge range of subjects, but we do not always know which agencies disseminate information on what topics.

FirstGov subject matter includes agriculture, the arts, business and economics, consumerism, environment and energy, federal benefits and grants, health, housing, education, money and taxes, public-service opportunities, recreation and travel, science and technology, and defense and international affairs. Users of the FirstGov search engine also can retrieve information by entering keywords in a search box.

Although FirstGov has received considerable publicity in recent weeks, those interested in mining the Web for useful government resources also will want to consider Google Unclesam http://www.google.com/unclesam, one of the best of the government-information search engines.

There also are specialized federal-government search engines. For example, Business Advisor http://www.business.gov functions as a one-stop guide to business information published by the federal government. And if it's statistics you want, don't forget the U.S. government is the largest producer of statistics in the world. FedStats http://www.fedstats.gov is a directory and search engine that brings together in one place statistical information prepared by nearly 70 federal agencies. Statistical Universe, a BISON database limited to current UB students and staff http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/lml/e-resources/statuniv.html is a second option for retrieving government statistics.

Having a problem using these or any other government-related tools? Librarians in Lockwood Library's "Business & Government Documents Reference Center" http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/lml/Government_Doc/genref.html are experts in retrieving government information.

-Edward Herman, University Libraries