Access to electronic information: A comparative evaluation

An empirical study comparing the usefulness of paper-based and electronic versions of the same document set was conducted by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG), located at the State University of New York at Albany. This study, one component of a broad examination of the costs and benefits associated with providing electronic access to government information, was designed to test whether online availability of policy documents is an acceptable, or even preferable, substitute for indexed access to their printed counterparts. This chapter presents an overview of the study's genesis, its methodology, and the results.