FinanceNet: the finance officers' site on the Internet.

Currently, all electronic highways lead to the Internet. Millions of people are already on-line, and the number is growing so rapidly that the statistics are outdated even before they are published. Most, if not all, proprietary networks such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy are racing to provide their members with full Internet access. Why? Because the Internet contains an almost unlimited amount of information. The trick, of course, is finding what is needed.

Recently, the GFOA's Government Finance Research Center began exploring ways to provide services to GFOA members through the Internet. As part of this exploration, GFOA staff attended the National Science Foundation's "FinanceNet Summit" in December 1994, to discuss the Internet services that could be provided to state and local governments. The meeting's attendees included representatives of many state and local government organizations, including the International Institute of Municipal Clerks; the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers; the National Association of State Treasurers; and the Municipal Treasurers Association. Also attending were representatives of state and local governments with Internet access, not the least of which was the City of New York's Comptroller's Office, the first state or local government to join FinanceNet.

FinanceNet, growing out of the initiatives developed by Vice President Gore's National Performance Review to reinvent government, is essentially a series of electronic information and communication services provided through the Internet. Its mission is to "innovate and optimize the way governments manage and account for taxpayer resources" by offering electronic information and communication services designed to link finance professionals in government, academia, and private industry. The tools and services provided through FinanceNet are developed and managed by the National Science Foundation, one of the originators of the Internet. These services will grow and change over time as ways are found to improve them. FinanceNet's current services are described in this article.

Electronic Mailing Lists ("Listservers"). Mailing lists offer an easy way for finance officials to request and share information with each other and to alert each other of important news. FinanceNet maintains more than 20 mailing lists on a wide range of topics, including performance measurement, internal controls, cash management, financial training, procurement, and a host of other issues. FinanceNet also maintains a separate listserver for the GFOA, which is used to distribute the "GFOA Gram," a weekly summary of electronic information of interest to GFOA members. Access to the mailing lists is open to anyone with e-mail access to the Internet, including members of CompuServe. To subscribe to the GFOA's listserver, send the following message: subscribe GFOA <first and last name> to the following Internet address: [e-mail]

Gopher Services. FinanceNet maintains a large document library containing current and archived information on many aspects of federal, state, and local finance. The documents are accessed through a "gopher" menu structure, which organizes the information into related categories. FinanceNet has provided GFOA with a section of the gopher library for posting documents of interest to GFOA members. Although information has just begun to be uploaded to this library, GFOA plans to include GFOA policies and recommended practices, fact sheets, congressional testimony, news releases, job postings, the GFOA calendar of events and training sessions, the GFOA product and service catalogue, abstracts, articles, and data related to state and local government finance. The FinanceNet gopher is available to anyone with Internet gopher access and can be reached by setting the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to: gopher.financenet.gov

World Wide Web Services. Seen as one of the most innovative applications of electronic information technology, the World Wide Web (referred to as WWW or the Web) connects text and graphics around the world through a series of "hypertext links." These links allow users to choose selected words or images and be connected instantly to other areas of the Internet (located, perhaps, on the other side of the planet) for additional information. FinanceNet's Web services connect users with a vast number of other Internet sites, such as the White House, House of Representatives, Library of Congress, Department of Commerce, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Reserve Board, and hundreds of other governmental and academic sites related to finance. In addition, all of the GFOA documents in the FinanceNet gopher will be available though FinanceNet's Web service. Anyone with Internet Web access can reach the FinanceNet Web site by setting the URL to: http://www.financenet.gov

In addition to the above services, the National Science Foundation is working to develop additional Internet tools, all of which will be available to GFOA members through FinanceNet. Among these are forums that will allow users to participate in real-time discussions with other members and to archive their discussions in a manner similar to that used in CompuServe forums. (See "Dropping in on a CompuServe Forum," Government Finance Review, February 1995.) FinanceNet staff are also constructing a "Quik Link" to federal, state, and local government asset sales sites, which will allow FinanceNet to serve as a clearinghouse for public offerings of government assets.

Recognizing the numerous useful services that FinanceNet offers for organizing and communicating information on the Internet, the GFRC is working to build an Internet meeting place for GFOA members in FinanceNet. The GFRC encourages all GFOA members with Internet e-mail access to subscribe to the GFOA's FinanceNet list-server. (Anyone who can send and receive e-mail on the Internet can join this list-server.) Doing so will begin a subscription to the GFOA Gram automatically and provide access to information and queries shared among GFOA members through the listserver. GFRC also encourages GFOA members to use FinanceNet and let staff know how it can be tailored to best serve government finance officials' information needs. E-mail comments and suggestions to Paul Zorn at [e-mail], or write to him at GFOA, 1750 K Street, N.W., Suite 650, Washington, DC 20006.

PAUL ZORN is manager with GFOA's Government Finance Research Center.