FirstGov is a noble idea--to streamline access to government information on the Web.
You can perform many personal activities on FirstGov. I was able to contact the email responder at the Social Security Administration (SSA). I wanted to securely change some information to my social security record. What I found was a warning that personal information should not be sent in any email to the SSA. I'm waiting to see if I get an email response directing me how to make the necessary changes. I'm hoping it works better than the SSA's phone system. (So many people work there, can't one of them answer the phone?)
The developer of FirstGov, Inktomi chief scientist Eric Brewer, cannot be held responsible for the slowness of the SSA. He only developed the search engine called FedSearch to access all the government information available on the Web. He doesn't run the government agencies.
For the past three years, I have been trying to find an affordable, searchable database to locate U.S. and state statistics on the Internet. Northern Light has made many government documents available, and a package called Statistical Universe claims to bring all that information readily to the user. Northern Light charges for some documents and Statistical Universe requires a significant subscription fee. I have tested them both over the last two years.
The problem with all of these services is that little of the information in these services appears to have been indexed in a logical form. Keywords may be assigned by humans, but they don't appear to be people trained as indexers. They don't rely on any fixed, or logical schema--like say, the Library of Congress subject headings. You have to hope that the keyword you choose exists somewhere in the document you are searching. If you wanted rates of hospital stays in various United States regions you would probably have some difficulty. You would have to know that this information is generally collected either by illness or by medical procedure.
I ran the same search on the Northern Light US government collection and on FirstGov.
I typed in "Ambulatory Surgery" and I was looking specifically for statistics. Northern Light took me directly to a brief article from the National Center for Health Statistics, "Ambulatory Surgery in the United States in 1996". It listed highlights and some pertinent statistics. The same search in FirstGov took me to a link for the raw data from that survey. But, I would have to fork over $305 for it. You decide. Which is more useful to you?
If you want to locate tax forms, visit the National Museums and Galleries, locate comsumer health information or if you have the exact title of a document you are seeking, you can use the FirstGov service as well as the others. If you don't--good luck. You'll need it.
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