Montpelier, lifelong home of our fourth president James Madison, has recently reopened to the public and on a windy Monday last week we took a tour. The house is not yet furnished, but many of the paintings that hung in the great hall have been restored to their places. While visiting, I remembered that James Madison (father of the U.S. Consitution) was the person I chose to investigate for a presidential papers project in my Government Documents class.

How things have changed in 30 years. Now most of President Madison's papers are available digitally and some are searchable. And the world of government documents has changed too. Back then we were dependent on the depository libraries--at least one per state--that kept and catalogued the vast array of gov docs. These libraries still exist, but the U.S. government has also embraced computerization and digitalization to make resources more convenient and managable. And the federal, state, and local governments continue to add user friendly features to their databases. For instance, it sure was easy this year to help people who didn't know where they were supposed to vote.

Hats off to the librarians, archivists, and subject specialists who continue to find ways to make our government documents accessible to all.