Porter, 'Federal Register and Commerce Business Daily Available Online', NCSU Libraries Newsletter v21n09 (April 1994)
 
_The NCSU Libraries Newsletter_
Volume 21 no. 9
April 1994
Porter, George and Angie Fullington
"Federal Register and Commerce Business Daily Available 
Online"

The _Federal Register_ serves as a daily announcement service 
for new and proposed federal regulations.  Federal government 
departments and agencies are required by law to announce via 
the _Federal Register_ all hearings, investigations, and 
proposed changes to rules and regulations in order to give the 
public timely notice to respond.  The _Federal Register_ is 
also a vehicle for timely publication of executive orders and 
proclamations of the president of the United States.

_Commerce Business Daily_ (CBD) lists notices of all proposed 
government procurement actions over $25,000 and contract 
awards over $25,000, with some exceptions.  The CBD also 
announces subcontracting leads, sales of government property, 
and foreign business opportunities.  Between 500 to 1,000 
notices are issued each business day, and each notice is 
published only once.  Notices include the name of a contact 
person at the agency placing the notice, deadlines for 
response, and descriptions of the contract opportunity or 
property.

Both of these important federal publications are now available 
for browsing and searching online.  NCSU's Office of Sponsored 
Programs has licensed these services for the entire NCSU 
campus from Counterpoint Publishing.  Counterpoint maintains 
a searchable file of forty-five days of CBD and provides access 
to the Federal Register from July 1, 1993, to the present.  
After logging on to the NCSU Libraries Information System, try 
this path:

>From the main menu select option 4,
Resources on the NCSU Campus

>From there, choose option 3,
InfoPoint, NCSU Computing Center Gopher

Next pick option 7,
Funding opportunities

Then select option 5,
NCSU Research Administration

Finally, choose the line number of the service you wish to use,
United States Commerce Business Daily
United States Federal Register

Anyone who has a gopher client on their computer and whose 
computer is attached to the campus network can gopher 
directly to Counterpoint and access these services.  Point the 
gopher client to

gopher.counterpoint.com

People who are using World Wide Web (WWW) browsers 
(Mosaic, Cello, Lynx) can use the Universal Resource Locator 
(URL) and enter

gopher://gopher.counterpoint.com

to connect directly to Counterpoint Publishing.  They could also 
use the following path through the WWW server being 
developed by the Computing Center (URL 
http://www.ncsu.edu/):

NCSU Administrative Information

	Funding Sources

		NCSU-provided Information

			NCSU Research Administration

				United States Commerce Business Daily

				United States Federal Register