The Virtual Chase web site has republished an introductory primer on doing public record searches and research online.

You can read this handy introduction to public record research @ The Art of Public Records Research.

The Iowa State Patrol have taken their crash reports and put them online. The reports are free to search for anyone with an internet connection. You can search the crash reports by date, type or county.

You can access the Iowa State Patrol crash reports database @ Iowa State Crash Reports.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has put its database of meth offenders online and made it freely searchable for the general public. You can search the Tennessee Meth Offender Registry by name or county.

You can access the online meth offender database @ Tennessee Meth Offender Database.

Member newspapers of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association now publish public record notices from their respective newspapers on a web site that is free to use by the general public.

To view the published public notices, follow the WNA News site link and click on the menu option for “Public Notice Web Site” at WNA News.

The new FirstGov search engine powered by Vivisimo and Microsoft has been launched 3 months ahead of schedule. The new search engine for the US Federal Government now indexes over 40 million pages compared to 8 million pages for the previous search site. The FirstGov search engine uses Vivisimo’s clustering technology to cluster similar results for easier searching and uses Microsoft search technology to retrieve results.

You can try out the new FirstGov search engine at FirstGovSearch.

Bill Lueders from The Capital Times in Madison, WI has written an excellent article with 10 tips for requesting open records and public records from government agencies. The article specifically addresses open record and public record requests in the state of Wisconsin. However, the tips can be generalized for requesting open and public records in almost any state, although public record laws will vary from state to state and county to county. The main things to remember when requesting open and public records is don’t be shy when requesting public records and don’t be afraid to ask questions of government record keepers.

You can read the article @ Tips for using open records law

The Washington Post provides a free online database of all Congressional voting records for the House of Representatives and Senate from 1991 to the present.

You can access the Washington Post Congressional voting records database at The U.S. Congress Votes Database

Student records from colleges and universities can be a great source of personal background information on current and former students, provided you can obtain them. Student records can include various things, like class transcripts and grades; written evaluations; financial aid records; loan collection records and disciplinary records.

Most colleges and universities have their own procedures and policies governing the release of student records and must adhere to Federal and state privacy and public record laws, like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). As a result, it is nearly impossible to find one source of information that covers every college and university student record policy.

In general, student record requests are handled through the university Registrar’s office, which may involve other university departments for certain specific student record requests.

The best way to find information on a particular university’s student record policies and procedures is to do a search on Yahoo or Google for student records as they relate to the given university.

Some possible search suggestions follow in bold:

student records policy Kansas State University

or, if you know the university’s domain name, more specifically:

student records site:ksu.edu

There is a lot of talk about what has come to be known as “Web 2.0″, but not much in the way of it being a new goldmine for public record searching. Web 2.0 can be loosely defined as the collaborative web. Web content is no longer in the hands of a few techie web masters and a handful of search engines. Web content is now created by the masses for the masses.

With the growing popularity of blogs, social network sites and collaborative projects like Wikipedia, the new web ( Web 2.0 ) is being created by anyone with an internet connection. Some of the very people who complain about the dangers of traditional public record access and their names and phone numbers being published in online white pages are the same people who have no trouble posting all types of information about themselves in blogs; online communities and social network sites, like MySpace, Friendster and FaceBook. As a result, Web 2.0 is fast becoming a goldmine for a new form of public record searching.

Old public record sources will always be the best way to find detailed information like civil and criminal records and property assessor records; but Web 2.0 sites will be the place to search to find out all sorts of personal information like, biographical records; resumes and employment history; educational background; interests and hobbies and, yes, even pictures. This is the type of personal information and psychological insights that traditional public record sources will never be able to match.

Just as free online classifieds are making traditional newspaper classifieds obsolete and mass journalism and blogging are destroying the big news outlets; the personal content of Web 2.0 could make paid databases a thing of the past. Take notice, Accurint et. al.

Here is a freely browsable database of crimes reported in the city of Chicago and plotted by location on a customized Google Map.

You can search the Chicago crime database by crime type; street; date; police beat; zip code; ward; location; city map or route.

You can search the Chicago crime database at Chicago Crime