Anyone working in or getting an education in public administration can have loads of research to do and little time. Even items such as the difference between public administration certificates, bachelor’s degrees, and doctorate degrees, can all take up valuable time. And if looking for a search engine or database just for public administrators beyond the basics like Google and local government office, there are even more difficulties.
To help make things easier, we have gathered 10 specialty search engines and web databases for public administrators. They include searches of government databases, private search engine utilizations, and even a few lesser and well known entries, along with why you should consider making the switch from your current search engine.
1- FedWorld.gov
Use this search engine to search over 30 million government web pages on USA.gov. This site is owned and managed by the National Technical Information Service and offers various sub searches. The main page also has links to many popular searches such as Supreme Court decisions and federal documents.
2- Search USA.gov
The official site of the U.S. government, you can simply type in your search term to begin. They also have popular search trends available for the clicking and even offer options in Spanish. There are also searches for images, recalls, and forms.
3- Gov Spot
Because simple is often the best, there is this search engine. You can look up the latest by type of government, headlines, and many of the support networks. They also offer top lists such as best high schools, government contractors, even the FBI’s most wanted list.
4- Library of Congress
You don’t have to visit this national library to take advantage of its resources. You can search for and find many items available online for the viewing over the web or find the item locally. There are also specialized searches such as Thomas, which allows viewing of legislative documents, and Copyright, which shares information related to copyrights.
5- GovEngine
Federal, state, county, and city governments are all addressed on this search engine. You can click on your state to begin, or check out federal resources. There even search engines for government sites in U.S. territories.
6- Yahoo Gov
The search engine at Yahoo provides a special page for government searches. Simply type in to begin, or search by the many sub categories such as law, politics, documents, and many others. They also list popular government sites on the page.
7- InfoMine
If looking for a scholarly government item, click here. This search engine allows you to look for items by author, title, subject, and more. You can even search by level of government.
8- Internet Archive: U.S. Government Documents
The Internet Archive maintains a collection of U.S. government documents. Currently, there are more than 2500 documents available in full-text in various formats. You may browse the collection by subject or keyword or search it by keyword. There is also an RSS feed for monitoring additions to the collection.
9- Sunlight Foundation
A non-profit organization based in Washington, DC that focuses on the digitization of government data and the creation of tools and Web sites to make that data easily accessible for all citizens.
10- LOUIS (Government Documents Search Engine)
LOUIS, which stands for Library Of Unified Information Sources, is a new search engine for finding documents generated by the federal government. Currently, you may query the full-text of 7 categories of documents simultaneously – congressional reports, the Congressional Record, congressional hearings, the Federal Register, presidential documents, GAO Reports, and bills and resolutions. LOUIS updates its database daily from the Government Printing Office (GPO).
[Source: This article was originally published in www.mastersinpublicadministration.com and www.virtualchase.justia.com ]
