Exhibitions and rules on the Web

For those who plan to leave the Washington metropolitan area during the holiday season but fear they will miss the area's rich cultural offerings check out the new World Wide Web site of the Smithsonian Institution's Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES).

Point your browser to www.si.edu/organiza/offices/sites to access the touring schedules descriptions and educational materials for SITES' many art history and science exhibits. Check out the next stop for the history and culture exhibitions which include "American Life After the Revolution " "African-American Life in the Antebellum South" and "The Jazz Age in Paris."

Interested in what's happening in central Florida? In Ocala the Smithsonian's traveling exhibit of photographs of American major league and minor league baseball stadiums will be on display in early 1997 a good prelude to baseball's annual rite of spring training. In Tampa "The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington" will be on display. Travel east to Orlando to catch the photography of Van Der Zee from 1886-1983.

Even if you do not plan to travel a visit to this page can be fun and educational. A short history lesson on each topic accompanies a detailed touring schedule. Users can take a virtual tour of some of the exhibits via a link to other Web sites. Exhibitions are categorized by topic and listed by the regions in the country they will be displayed and searches can be narrowed to states or cities.

Regulations On-LineThere's hope for government employees trying to create that seemingly unobtainable "paperless office." Another federal reference now has made its move to the on-line frontier.Point your browser to www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr to access selected volumes of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) which are the codified general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register. The on-line CFR which now offers 13 digital volumes is a joint project between the National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal Register and the Government Printing Office.

Books available on-line include Social Security benefits food and drug safety and environmental protection programs. Additional titles will be added incrementally through 1997.

Just like its arcane hard-copy cousin don't expect the on-line version to offer a dazzling array of graphics. Just the titles broken down into chapters are displayed on the site. But the breadth of information included in each on-line volume allows users to narrow searches much more effectively than the printed format. For example users can search all available titles by keywords retrieve available CFR sections by citation or search the Federal Register for related documents about CFR.

Each CFR book is revised annually. Now when a revised book is printed an on-line edition will also be released. The pages for all the CFR books can be viewed and printed exactly as they appear in print format.For more information on Federal Register publications point your browser to GPO's home page at www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html or to www.nara/fedreg/fedreg.html to access the home page of the Office of the Federal Register.