Online records: Survey finds many states lagging.

(From AP Online)

Byline: DAVID CRARY

Americans can easily learn about their state songs and state flowers with a quick search on the Internet, but most will have a harder time checking whether their children's school buses are safe or a local gas station is charging too much.

A 50-state survey of government information accessible online, conducted as part of the annual Sunshine Week campaign, found that while official records are increasingly available on the Internet, some important information is missing.

To conduct the survey, teams of journalists and journalism students scanned government Web sites in every state to look for 20 kinds of public records. The results were released Sunday at the start of Sunshine Week, a national initiative by journalism organizations to focus on open government and access to information.

Surveyors assessed such factors as whether the information was up-to-date and clearly linked, if full reports or only summaries were available, and whether …