This site displays a prototype of a “Web 2.0” version of the daily Federal Register. It is not an official legal edition of the Federal Register, and does not replace the official print version or the official electronic version on GPO’s govinfo.gov.
The documents posted on this site are XML renditions of published Federal Register documents. Each document posted on the site includes a link to the corresponding official PDF file on govinfo.gov. This prototype edition of the daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov will remain an unofficial informational resource until the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (ACFR) issues a regulation granting it official legal status. For complete information about, and access to, our official publications and services, go to About the Federal Register on NARA's archives.gov.
The OFR/GPO partnership is committed to presenting accurate and reliable regulatory information on FederalRegister.gov with the objective of establishing the XML-based Federal Register as an ACFR-sanctioned publication in the future. While every effort has been made to ensure that the material on FederalRegister.gov is accurately displayed, consistent with the official SGML-based PDF version on govinfo.gov, those relying on it for legal research should verify their results against an official edition of the Federal Register. Until the ACFR grants it official status, the XML rendition of the daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov does not provide legal notice to the public or judicial notice to the courts.
This week we rolled out a “suggested search” feature and a new look for highlighted documents in the news section pages. Our photo illustrations in the section pages are now in a larger, wider format and we added arrow pointers to let you leaf through four featured articles instead of scrolling down the page. Use the “Sections” pull-down at the top of any page to see highlighted documents and the new suggested searches.
Inside each news section, we now feature 7 to 13 suggested searches, which are designed for users to quickly delve into “trending topics” in the news, and many “evergreen” regulatory actions and notifications that appear routinely and frequently and are of particular interest to certain users.
Trending topics are items such as Dodd-Frank regulations, health care reform, education initiatives, and energy efficiency. Evergreen topics include frequently published items such as information collection notices, endangered & threatened species findings, oil and gas leasing documents, and fishery management decisions.
At any given time, a “routine” topic can become vitally important and timely, such as our Disaster Declarations & Assistance search. Other items, such as Social Security rulings, may not be published often but they can be difficult to find, and may be essential to gaining a full understanding of the law and regulations that govern the program.
Caveats and Quibbles: We have been working hard to refine the suggested searches to optimize relevancy. For example, international economic sanctions are quite different from the kinds of sanctions domestic law enforcement agencies publish in the Federal Register. We try to set up searches to eliminate clearly irrelevant items, but some off-topic and marginally related items may remain. Undoubtedly, we will not succeed in weeding out all the semantic red herrings and our search parameters may miss a few articles that would be relevant to the topic. In any case, you can always customize our “canned” search results to fit your true area of interest.
So suggested searches are very much a work in progress. But they can be improved quickly with the right additions and subtractions of search terms. It would be particularly helpful if you — our users — take the opportunity to tell us what works, what doesn’t, and what additional topical areas would help you navigate into the world of Federal regulations and policy.
We hope that our new suggested searches will make it easier for you to track particular issues and regulatory programs, and share that information within your communities of interest.