Thanks to Bill Campbell & the community who responded! This is extremely
useful information.

>A week or more ago, I asked the list for suggestions on gaining free
>electronic access to the Federal Register.  I promised that I would post
>what I learned to the list, here it is.
>
>The mother lode is the access provided by the Govt Printing Office, at
><http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces001.html>.  This
>homepage will get you access to all of their services, including six
>searchable databases, one of which is FR.  The table of contents of the
>current edition is located at
><http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces800.shtml>, but of
>course it changes daily.  I find the GPO system clunky but usable; some
>of the folks who told me about it love it, some hate it.  Many use it.
>
>One can also access the GPO database through Federal Depository
>Libraries, listed on the GPO homepage.  One person uses three of these
>libraries--Oklahoma State, LSU, and Purdue--regularly, says they're
>generally faster than GPO.  They are at:
><http://bubba.ucc.okstate.edu/wais/gpoaccess/>
><http://Indigo.lib.lsu.edu/gpo/ >
><http://thorplus.lib.purdue.edu/gpo/>.
>
>Someone told me about access through the Community of Science
>homepage, I took a brief look and was impressed, told a few others, one
>of them checked further to learn--of course!--that one has to be a
>member to use it, costs big bucks.  Still, it's a slick interface.
>
>Finally, InfoEd (The SPIN folks) offer access to the FR through their
>webpage.  It retails for $500 a year, more than Counterpoint even, but
>they offered me a 30 day trial, no doubt they would extend that to others
>(right Tammy?).  Their service is slick, one can browse or search by
>year, month or day, text is retrievable and readable.
>
>The ultimate question is, how much is it worth to have a service which is
>slicker than the one GPO provides?  We've already paid for that one, of
>course; do we want to pay Counterpoint, CoS, or InfoEd again to dress
>up the same information a little?
>
>Anyhow, that's what I learned.  Thanks to the dozen or so folks who
>advised me, I appreciate it, the rest of the list will too.
>
>Regards, Bill Campbell
>Director, Grants & Research
>University of Wisconsin-River Falls

Renee Mellissinos
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The University of Texas at Austin
Office of Sponsored Projects
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