FirstGov ,http://www.firstgov.gov., President’s Management Council, c/o GeneralServices Administration, 1800 “F” Street, N.W., Room 5240, Washington DC 20405-0002.

“FirstGov: Is it a Good Idea?” hearing before the House Subcommittee onGovernmentManagement, Information, and Technology, October 2, 2000,,http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/2000hearings/001002/FirstGov/001002h.htm..

It may not be the best, but FirstGov,http://www.firstgov.gov. is certainly one of the mostinteresting search engines for government Web pages around today. Launched in September2000 and envisioned as a single web portal for all federal government information online,FirstGov logos and links are displayed prominently on all federal agency Web sites. The name“FirstGov” is intended to signify that it is “your first click to government” on the Internet.

In addition to visiting the FirstGov web site, researchers interested in learning more aboutFirstGov will find the online hearing, “FirstGov: Is it a Good Idea?” a useful source of furtherinformation about FirstGov, as it includes testimony by officials from the Office of Managementand Budget (OMB), the General Services Administration (GSA), the General Accounting Office(GAO), as well as testimony by FirstGov stakeholder Dr. Eric Brewer and other interested parties.

FirstGov was a project of the Clinton Administration’s President’s Management Council, theGeneral Services Administration, and Dr. Eric Brewer of Inktomi Corporation, who through hisFederal Search Foundation, donated FirstGov’s Inktomi-based search engine and database. In histestimony at the hearing “FirstGov: Is it a Good Idea?” on October 2, 2000 before the Housesubcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, Brewer stated that“after a period of between 2–3 years, the Federal Search Foundation will turn over its servers andknowledge base to the government,” and at that time, “the government must determine whetherthe service is valued enough by the public to be worth continuing.”

A controversial feature of FirstGov is the “FirstGov Partners” links for partnerships with“private sector, academia, state and local governments, and non-profit organizations.” “PartnersPackages,” representing different levels of links to FirstGov, range from a simple link (Bronze)to a search box (Silver) or direct connection with the Fed-Search engine (Gold). At the 2000hearings on “FirstGov: Is It a Good Idea,” both Dr. Patrice McDermott of OMB Watch and MarkBohannon of the Software and Information Industry Association expressed concerns about theFirstGov partnerships. Bohannon noted in a September 12th hearing that Gold-level partners could becharged an estimated $25,000 annually plus possible “per query” costs, which raises many issuesregarding ownership of the database and information, while on October 10th, McDermott commentedthat “considerable energy has been placed on partnerships with the private sector” but more needed tobe done to “improve linkages with state and local governments.”

FirstGov partners are linked at,http://www.firstgov.gov/partners/fgpartners.html.. Examinationof FirstGov partners’ sites, particularly private sector partners with .com and .net extensions, found thatmany did not appear to have implemented a return link to FirstGov despite FirstGov’s link to them.Also a possible technical problem not yet worked out by FirstGov was noted for partner sites, which

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had Silver or Bronze level “search box” implementations, where none of the search boxes appearedto work when tested.

FirstGov’s e-mail feedback page,http://www.firstgov.gov/feedback/Feedback-Form.jsp. states “we are unable at this time to respond directly to any emails,” thoughfeedback is used “to improve the services available to the public through this and othergovernment websites.” The page allows users either to send e-mail to FirstGov or tomore than 120 federal agencies that FirstGov links there by topic and agency. Testifyingabout FirstGov before the House subcommittee on Government Management, Informa-tion and Technology on October 2, 2000, OMB Deputy Director Sally Katzen noted thata key element of e-government is “access to government information and services 24hours a day, 7 days a week.” FirstGov’s guide to feedback forms to federal agencies bysubject,http://www.firstgov.gov/feedback/by_topic.html. certainly provides that ac-cess, making it easy to locate and contact federal agencies electronically. Katzen testifiedthat “Web traffic has increased for agencies with the launch of FirstGov,” but it remainsto be seen how well agencies will handle increased demands of public electronic traffic.

FirstGov’s Inktomi search engine database contains over 500 million pages, and regularly indexes27 million federal agency pages. Browsing by subject is also available in FirstGov’s 16-subject Webdirectory, created by the General Services Administration, with basic topics such as “Business &Economy,” “Learning & Jobs,” “Healthy People” and “U.S. & The World.” A “Featured Subjects”section changes each month to showcase new government Web sites, FirstGov guides, and other sitesof timely or topical relevance. A “Past Features” archive is also available.

As a search engine, FirstGov is effective for domain name and expanded keywordsearching but less effective for date searching and searching by world geographic regions.The database only contains .gov and .mil sites for U.S. government, and does not includeother governments of the world. Researchers may instead wish to try Hotbot,http://hotbot.lycos.com/. for date searching or Google’s UncleSam,http://www.google.com/unclesam/. for searching world government pages. Google’s UncleSam also offers domainname and expanded keyword searching as advanced features, and in tests outperformsFirstGov in its relevance ranking of search results.

Overall, while FirstGov’s search engine does not impress, the GSA’s FirstGov Webdirectory does. Built by General Services Administration staff with the goal of improv-ing access to e-government for all users, FirstGov Web directory pages are at leastcomparable and often superior to the Open Directory pages used by Google. GSA staffincorporated ideas from FirstGov user feedback to create useful Web directory subjectpages such as Facts for You,http://w3.gsa.gov/FactsForYou.nsf. and Doing Businesswith Government,http://www.firstgov.gov/top_nav/buswgov.html.. If only the First-Gov search engine’s relevance ranking could be improved, such as by giving a higherrelevance ranking to sites already linked within FirstGov’s own subject directory pages,this combination of a good search engine plus a well-designed Web directory wouldcertainly boost FirstGov’s performance as a “one-stop shop” for government informa-tion. Until then, researchers may prefer to use another search engine for governmentpages such as Google’s UncleSam, but to use FirstGov’s Web directory pages whenbrowsing access is useful.

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Lorri MonElectronic Government Information Services Librarian

University of Illinois at Chicago, the Main Library (m/c 234)Documents, Maps, Microforms and Curriculum Department,

801 South Morgan Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607E-mail address:lmon@uic.edu.

PII: S0740-624X(01)00069-7

MEDLINE: A Guide to Effective SearchingBrian S. Katcher; San Francisco: The Ashbury Press, 1999. 149p. $29.00 (softcover).ISBN 0967344506.

This concise guide to searching the MEDLINE database has five chapters, starting with the“Origins of MEDLINE and Why it Works the Way it Does”, moving on to “Searching in MED-LINE”, a discussion of “Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)”, hints on using “Publication Types andOther Limiting Strategies”, and finally “Framing Questions and Other Practical Tips.” The last chapteris particularly useful in helping searchers to formulate and evaluate advanced searches.

The heart of this book consists of only 85 pages, further supplemented by two appendices anda glossary. Appendix A consists of MEDLINE Interfaces and other related information on theWorld Wide Web. Appendix B is a List of all the journals included in Abridged Index Medicus,considered to be the core journals of MEDLINE, although no longer published in printed form,it can be used to limit searches. A glossary of MeSH terms use in the sample searches is addedto aid those not familiar with medical terminology. The large index is helpful for quick reference.

The book thoroughly and concisely explains Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), tree struc-tures, subheadings, and other features of MEDLINE, and also explains how these pieces can worktogether to clarify and focus a search. Additional subjects covered include the history ofMEDLINE and its origins as Index Medicus, the original index to the National Library ofMedicine, and explanations of how databases began and evolved from the beginnings of Booleansearching through the use of punch cards, to present day Web interfaces.

Step by step sample searches that can be done in a variety of MEDLINE platforms areprovided. However, the author does note every MEDLINE platform does not work in thesame way and some do not offer the capability to do every technique included in the book.The sample searches are fairly simple so as to be easy to follow, but they demonstrate avariety of search techniques that the reader will be able to combine to formulate moreadvanced searches. The author does not provide specific instructions for any one MEDLINEplatform, and one notable flaw is that the platform recommended here for beginningsearchers, PubMed Advanced Search, is no longer available. However, with a little hands-onexploration of the PubMed and Internet Grateful Med interfaces from the National Libraryof Medicine, a searcher will be able to duplicate most of the techniques covered.

This is a good starting point for MEDLINE searchers and those wishing to improve their skills, andis especially useful to those doing large numbers of searches and will save time by formulating

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