Pierre Bourque, an Ottawa journalist and member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, promises an “official and unofficial” look at web sites that will offer us access to our history, legal system, information on First Nations, “deep access into the workings of government,” provincial and territorial legislatures, municipal governments, and governments worldwide.

The bulk of the book consists of lists of federal institutions, arranged alphabetically as they are on the government’s electronic page itself. The remaining sections list provincial/territorial sources, municipal web sites, and international governments. These are followed by six appendixes including online resources, media lists, and search engines. The layout is clean, easy to read, and pleasing to consult.

In the preface, Bourque addresses “citizens” as the intended audience. I believe, however, that at $29.95 this volume will more likely find its way to the reference departments of public and academic libraries. Government departments themselves may also want to have a copy handy.

The question invariably arises as to whether experienced internet users will look up a site in a directory, or rely on the rather more instant gratification of a net search. I suspect that those who have honed their skills at composing keyword queries and the deciphering of http addresses will do their searching online. A second source of concern is the currency of any printed guide to internet sites. The federal government Primary Internet Site is scarcely a year old and addresses are likely to change/disappear/reappear in different configurations, or to “morph,” to use the author’s word. In this case, the directory retains value more as a resource for future historical studies.

A major drawback to this volume is the lack of a keyword index. Users must rely on intuition and the table of contents to choose a web site that might meet their needs. Finally, the searching engines, although helpful, do not list such gems as Four11 and Whowhere, two of the niftiest people-finders on the net.

Time is a commodity still available to some in our society, and curiosity is one of our more charming human characteristics. Those with both will have a lot of fun poring over the listings shown, and even more in visiting the sites to see how our governments have made their services, their information, and their resources available to us through the real magic of the internet.