In a discussion just a few days ago, I commented to Larry London,
compiler of the sustainable/organic ag database at SunSite and occasional
poster to bionet.plants, that indexable/retrievable access to the Federal
Register (the gazette of the daily business of Congress) would be
empowering to a number of people. Larry sent me the following, which I
think might be of general interest.
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Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:30:12 -0500 (EST)
>From: Larry London <london at SunSite.unc.edu>
Subject: Federal Register available on the Internet
.....
------------------------------
>From: susan calcari <calcaris at nic.cerf.net>
Sat, 9 Jan 93 09:45:01 PST
To: Multiple recipients of list <nis at cerf.net>
Subject: Federal Register Available on Internet
PRESS RELEASE
-------------
COUNTERPOINT OFFERS FIRST DAILY FEDERAL REGISTER VIA INTERNET
CAMBRIDGE, MA. (Jan. 7, 1993) -- Counterpoint Publishing, Inc. today
announced a new service providing same-day availability of the complete
Federal Register (FR) via the Internet, the largest data communications
network in the world. The Federal Register is an official U.S. Government
daily publication containing all proposed and final rules and notices from
more than 130 government agencies.
The Counterpoint Federal Register service will provide the fully
indexed text of the complete Federal Register sourced from the magnetic
tapes provided daily by the U.S. Government Printing Office. Articles in
the FR contain, for example, new EPA regulations, grant and funding
opportunities, Presidential documents and hundreds of other proposals,
rules and meeting notices each day.
Counterpoint's simplified menu-driven software allows end-users to
view the daily Federal Register by table of contents, key words in any and
exact order, article type, full-text or heading only, agency, date or range
of dates or citation. The software does not require graphical interfaces,
a mouse or function keys, thus making it easy to use on a variety of
computing platforms such as IBM-compatibles, Macintosh(tm), Unix(tm),
VMS(tm), etc. Routine searches can be stored add replayed. Documents in
the FR are exportable in ASCII format with text exportable to E-mail, any
word processor, or printer.
Counterpoint will also provide alternative access to the Federal
Register to better address the unique needs of the Global Internet
community. Using such distribution and access mechanisms as Usenet News
(NNTP), Mail (SMTP), Gopher, WAIS and the World Wide Web, Counterpoint will
provide the daily Federal Register in the most cost efficient and timely
manner possible, using the most up to date and powerful tools available to
the network user.
The new Counterpoint service is provided through arrangement with
Internet.COM - Internet Consulting Services of Cambridge, MA., helping
providers of goods and services develop commercial presence on the Global
Internet.
Counterpoint is the nation's leading publisher of federal source
documents in electronic formats. Several thousand customers now use the
weekly CD-ROM version of the Federal Register instead of the hardbound
paper version. Counterpoint also introduced recently the complete U.S.
Code of Federal Regulations on Compact Disc. This product will also be
made available to the Global Internet in the future.
--- For more information, call Counterpoint at 800-998-4515 or via e-mail
on the Internet at fedreg at internet.com.
--
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I have no financial interest in CounterPoint nor have I even contacted them
yet....but for those who would like to become self-sufficient in tracking
announcements of federal grant programs or legislation/regulation affecting
your science ...I think this is a big step forward!
Steve
---
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| In person: Steve Modena AB4EL |
| On phone: (919) 515-5328 |
| At e-mail: nmodena at unity.ncsu.edu |
|samodena at csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu |
| [ either email address is read each day ] |
| By snail: Crop Sci Dept, Box 7620, NCSU, Raleigh, NC 27695 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Lighten UP! It's just a computer doing that to you. (c)
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
