Trapping Topic-Based Information - Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web - page 156

Visiting this front page you see no indication of RSS feeds or newsletters
to which you may subscribe. What fresh information do you see? You see a
pointer to current food recalls. his is a page you could monitor (or get the
available alerts by e-mail). Returning to the front page, notice that there's
an Announcements and Events box on the front page, which would also
beneit from a page monitor. Notice too that there's a Newsroom link that
provides you with updates on department events—another candidate for a
page monitor.
On the other hand, the U.S. Maritime Administration site puts headlines,
announcements, and program listings all on one page—the front page—
which makes it a very rich source for a page monitor.
In general, you want to keep an eye out for virtual “press rooms,” events
announcements, calendars, and anything that begins with the phrase “see
our latest.” Some places also ofer newsletters—those are generally for con-
sumer-level information. If you're looking for something higher-level or
more esoteric, you're going to be doing a lot of page monitoring. You will
not be able to rely on the newsletters.
he next level of trapping government information is international sites.
Most countries have Web sites, but the quality and scope vary even more
than they do among city, state, and federal sites.
You have a secret weapon, though. I'll show you what it is in a minute.
Monitoring International Sites
Alas, you can't go to Google and search for “the country of X” and
get the oicial country site. Oten you get gunk. So you have to rely on a
third-party site that aggregates oicial country sites. Try the CIA Factbook,
at cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html. It provides extensive infor-
mation about each of the countries of the world, including a map, demo-
graphic information, and governmental information ( Figure 7.24 ).
But the important thing it provides is the “oicial” name of the country,
which you can then use on a search engine.