U.S. NOW HAS A ONE-STOP WEB SPOT

WASHINGTON -- Want to track your Social Security benefits? Needto apply for a federal student loan? Having trouble surfing theInternet to find the nearest veterans hospital? Want to reserve acampsite at a national park?

Now, Americans can do all these things by logging on to a singleU.S. government Web site: firstgov.gov.

The Internet site consolidates 20,000 government Web sites some27 million Web pages.

"Up to this point, the problem has been finding the information"in the maze of government Web sites, said Thomas Kalil, specialassistant to the president for economic policy. "It's been like alibrary without a card catalog."

David J. Barram, administrator of the General ServicesAdministration, which will manage FirstGov, said the site's "simpleand elegant" design will help both citizens and federal workers findinformation quicker and easier.

"The Internet is the most powerful tool for working,communicating and transacting," he said. "What we are doing here istrying to make it easy for citizens to do those things with theirgovernment."

President Clinton gave the agency 90 days to have a Web site upand running, and Barram said FirstGov was done in "Internet Time,"far quicker than many other government projects. Helping to speedmatters along, the new site's search engine, Fedsearch, was donatedby Inktomi chief scientist Eric Brewer.

The site will also be customized for partners, such as AmericaOnline or Yahoo!, so that users of those services will see differentversions of FirstGov and the search engine. Barram said there hasbeen "tremendous interest" in partnerships from the Internetcommunity.

Barram, who was the chief financial officer at Apple Computerduring its heyday in the late 1980s and early '90s, is a technologylover himself, carrying a Palm V handheld computer on his belt likea sidearm.

"In GSA, everyone has had access to the Internet since 1996," hesaid. "If we wanted to be great, we needed people to have greattools. You feel you're part of the world, you do things morequickly, more efficiently."

A recent Brown University report criticized government agenciesfor not using the Internet efficiently. It said that the sites hadno common design or navigational structure, and many lacked usefulfeatures and information.