Sure the temperature is rising in D.C. but it’s like Christmas morning for public policy geeks when groups like the non-profit Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) launch something like PolicyArchive.org.

CGS says that the site is the “largest online repository of public policy research in the world.” And it’s all at your fingertips for free! Before the launch of this, online policy research could be quite burdensome, requiring the researcher to navigate through multiple Web sites that use various formats. CGS’ goal is to change all that by collecting policy papers from a “wide range of nonprofit, educational, governmental, private and international think tanks and research organizations” on 306 subtopics. The site currently has available 12,000 policy documents from over 220 think tanks, policy shops and other research organizations. A full listing of contributing sources can be found here.

The site doesn’t just upload the reports, they use the best of easy-to-use technology by providing summaries and synopses, indexing, and an internal search engine, among other devises and tools. And this is just the beginning. They have plans for a second version of the site that will include online communities, user ratings and reviews and other neat features.  I see they have only a few reports from the Congressional Research Service, so I hope to connect them with OpenCRS.com. Seems like there’s a good synergy there.

Very useful stuff.