When you do a search in a library, you may find some books, and then when you go to find those books, you see other related ones on the shelf. That works because you have skilled librarians figuring out what books should be shelved next to each other in the Dewey Decimal System. I haven't seen that type of organization online. If the nature of the information is geographic, I definitely see a connection. Singh's project allows citizens to search for geographic and environmental data about their own communities.
Citizens use an online map of the state or county to pinpoint the region they want to research.
By pointing to a region, the system zeroes in on a particular online data set and offers it to the user. The database is in the tens of gigabytes, and the geographic range is the entire commonwealth of Massachusetts, Singh said. In addition, he is setting up a similar but smaller project for a city in Florida. Singh has plans for even more elaborate applications to bring zoning and construction approval process online. Maybe they could draw over a copy of the plan online and submit comments.