Identifying and Evaluating Major Data Resources on the Internet

This past week we have had the assignment to investigate and analyze some online data resources that were provided for us as well as find and analyze some resources on our own.  My findings can be found here.  I was surprised by how some online resources that one would think would have their data accessible online did not.  One of these was the National Archives which had broken the link that our professor had given us due to some internal reorganization.  For the most part, if someone was looking for genealogical or census data, he or she would need to either pay for some microfiche to be sent to them, or to travel to a National Archive site for free access.  The National Archive site closest to Milwaukee, WI is in Chicago.  After that, the next closest is in Lancing, Michigan.  I was very surprised to find out that there is no site located in either the capital city of each state or in the major universities located all over the U.S.  However, I did find out that the only reason that this is the reality, is that there is just too much that needs to be stored in the National Archives to be able to digitize it all and maintain it online.  That being said, I am glad there are some enterprising individuals (such as the creators of Ancestry.com and Heritagequest.com) that are doing what they can to make this available for a fee.