The Availability Of U.S. Government Depository Publications On The World Wide Web

In order to explore the prevalence of federal government information on the World Wide Web, two random samples were taken of material sent to federal depository libraries in the first half of the year 2000. Over the course of eighteen months four separate attempts were made to find each of the sample publications on the World Wide Web using a variety of search engines. During the first attempt, one to five months after the material was sent to depository libraries, 47% of the publications in the sample were located on the Web. During the final and most successful attempt, 18 to 23 months after the distribution, 63% of the sample publications were located. Based on the sample, at present almost two-thirds of depository material are available on the Web approximately two years after the material was sent to depository libraries.