The Federal Government has a reputation for being distant and inaccessible to the common man or woman. Try to get the appropriate individual on the line, find the form, obtain the information, or register the complaint without pulling out quantities of hair or spending hours on hold, and you"ll see whence comes that notoriety. It is precisely for this sort of access that the Internet works so well. Opening the relevant Web site takes a matter of seconds, and you"re there, with documents for the browsing, forms for the printing, and e-mail for the sending of whatever your comments or queries may be. This book is Maxwell"s fourth edition of federal Internet access, so he has the format down pat, with more than 900 sites, mailing lists, and newsgroups you can get to for free. There are sites for federal statistical data and consumer publications, information for women starting businesses and safe Web links for kids, online forms for federal student aid and details about toxic chemicals, clinical trials on cancer therapies, and international travelers" health advice. For each topic, Maxwell tells a little about what you"ll find on the site, plus vital statistics such as access address and e-mail. So the This is MEGA Mathematics! site has lesson plans, activities, and stories related to the math for map coloring, graph theory, knots, and algorithms, and Dr. Felix"s Free MEDLINE page provides links to all the Internet sites that offer free access to MEDLINE, plus tutorials and relevant links. The more you browse the table of contents, the more you realize how much there is that you want to explore. Maxwell"s Web links are not just for folks who want to fight City Hall--they open up the whole world, from agriculture and the arts to health, jobs, technology and transportation. --Stephanie Gold