The National Political Index (NPI) claims to be a “one‐stop shop for substantive political information,” providing links to 3,500 Web sites with another 50 added each month. It focuses primarily on the USA, but it has links, for example, to political parties in other countries. Its laudable aim is to politically empower individuals and in doing so to counter the nefarious influence of television advertising.
The Web site utilizes a simple design featuring an image of the Stars and Stripes and the legend “National Political Index” emblazoned across it. It is a rather functional design which makes no use of the imaginative graphics that a large number of Web sites now use. Two welcome improvements would be to substitute the drab gray background for something more inspiring and to use an alternative color for the category buttons.
Thirty‐two categories are used to subdivide the Web links on the site, and there are additional sections providing background information on NPI and awards. The categories range from Federal elected officials and state and local officials to Online political magazines and Win a Porsche Carrera. The user may move easily from category to category by clicking on the index, which is always visible. A useful additional feature would be a keyword search facility that could search across all the categories on the site. This would make site navigation more flexible and aid novice users who are not familiar with the site’s category structure.
The site’s content reflects the richness and vibrancy of the USA’s political culture. In many instances the content of the site can be found elsewhere, but for some information, it is difficult to find the quality of information which NPI has available. A search on past and present senators sitting in the Minnesota Senate found the relevant names. Also a search on the government departments within Mississippi found all the important constituents of the state’s government.
A good Web site requires constant updating to remain relevant. The greatest problem for The National Political Index is the large number of hyperlinks which have changed or no longer exist. For some categories, I found that almost every link was dead. For instance, in the case of the Online political magazine category, six of the seven links are to magazines which no longer exist. The last needed updating. Similarly, there are some excellent links listed in the Important unclassified political sites such as Clamen’s political archives and the Gettysburg Address, but the number of dead links outweighs the quality of the remaining links. The Explorer ‐ your guide to the Internet, Politics, Michael Farnworth’s politics page, US politics and the Gutenburg List of Political Writings are all dead links.
Indexes of political resources on the Web are available on a number of other Web sites. Two of the best are Poly‐Cy ‐ Internet resources for political science (http:// pslab11.polsci.wvu.edu/polycy/index.html); and Political science research resources (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/∼rtucker/polisci/miscpol.html). These indexes of hyperlinks are if anything more current than those listed on the NPI site.
The most disappointing section of the whole Web site is the category entitled Hourly political headlines. The primaries for the American Presidential hopefuls were in full swing at the time of this review, and I expected the links within this section to reflect quality, in‐depth coverage of the elections. The NPI category still contains the hyperlinks listed for the previous presidential election in 1996. CBS: Campaign 96, USA Today: election 96 are dead links. Altogether more up‐to‐date political coverage is available at the alternative Web site (http://www.politics1.com/news1.htm). The Net guide to American politics, candidates and parties has excellent coverage of the current US primaries.
NPI’s publisher, Dennis Hemmerle, does admit that some of the information on the Web site is more than four years old. The publisher intends to e‐mail the 3,500 sites that NPI hyperlinks asking for suggestions and additions. To be charitable to NPI, its Nexus and Paul Revere Programs may have a higher priority than the maintenance of its Web site. The goal of locating and developing at least one political Web site in each of the USA’s 166,000 precincts is a major undertaking. However, NPI really needs to spend more money on updating its site, or it will increasingly become irrelevant. In conclusion, I found NPI to be a disappointing Web site. More time and resources need to be devoted for it to live up to its billing of the “most visited political site in the country which links to thousands of political resources.”
