The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is an excellent resource if you need to compare public school systems or public universities across several states or nationwide. This division of the US Department of Education is responsible for collecting and publishing information related to elementary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions.

The California Department of Education (CDE) collects and reports on numerous school indicators beyond the Base Academic Performance Index (API) report that we discussed last week. School budgets, class sizes, student-to-teacher ratios and access to technology are all cataloged and reported alongside school performance.

Data on school performance is in high demand among the parents of school age children and real estate professionals working to fully communicate a particular property's value (i.e., "the schools are wonderful"). This data is also widely used in political campaigns.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) recently announced that it has started posting online the Statements of Economic Interest (SEIs) for California elected officials.

California Watch reported last week that Pfizer has begun disclosing payments to doctors. Pfizer's newly launched database includes payments to individual healthcare professionals, medical practices and medical institutions from July 1 to December 31, 2009. Several other major pharmaceutical companies have also started increasing transparency, in anticipation of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act which will require this type of payment disclosure to be universal by 2012.

Publications pre-dating the Internet can be difficult to access, typically requiring a trip to a specialized library or private collection. However, several organizations and individuals are working toward digitizing older content for an online audience.

This week, the Library of Congress and Google both announced that they are developing digital archives allowing researchers to search all public tweets since Twitter debuted in March 2006.

The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) is an independent panel that reviews and investigates allegations of ethical misconduct within the US House of Representatives. At the end of its review process, OCE makes many of its reports (what OCE calls "referrals") and investigative materials available for public review creating a new repository for public records researchers.

The recent Toyota recall was well publicized, but not all consumer product oversight matters will generate that kind of attention. Lack of press coverage shouldn't be misinterpreted as lack of available information.

The digitization of television and video clips enables websites to create video archives housing years of recorded footage typically searchable by program or topic. While some websites are oriented toward popular entertainment, there are several which emphasize news and political recordings that are indispensable for backgrounding politicians and other public figures. Here is an overview of some of the best resources for searching for videos of interest.

"Data, data everywhere," a special report from The Economist on managing information is worth a look here. "The open society" segment of the special report makes a persuasive argument for the role open records and transparency play in accomplishing public policy goals.

Last week we discussed some of the specialized and niche search engines that have emerged to compete with Google. This week an article in Wired explains how Google is continually refining its search algorithms to provide the best results of a generalized search engine.