It had to happen. Newspapers that publish public records databases have been attracting more viewers to their sites. I don’t know if this translates into subscribers or other ways papers make money, but the Memphis Daily News is taking the direct approach, selling access to Tennessee public records. The paper has partnered with the Chandler Reports, which sells property profiles and business filings. There are no free searches, although they do the usual gimmick of presenting search fields but then require a fee to see any results.

One interesting feature that I haven’t seen other newspapers pick up monitors new public records filings then sends them to you in an email. This costs, too. The Watch Service charges $1 a month per tracked entity - a business, person or address - obtaining daily filings of property, bankruptcy and court records. Then an alert is emailed to you when a record is located. It’s unclear how detailed this is. Also, the service only covers Shelby and DeSoto counties.

Oh, the paper did just add a free crime report database. Search by address to find crime incidents. If you want to receive email alerts you’ll have to subscribe!

Similar and more extensive records may be available for free from the government agencies that generate them. Perhaps some of my readers can enlighten us.

Government agencies seem to have someone dedicated to moving their Web links to new addresses without a redirect link. You can find the Nevada Department of Corrections Offender Search at a new URL. The database includes current inmates but also those on release or no longer supervised.

The San Jose Police Department has begun adding crime incidents within the past month to the crime mapping site CrimeReports. The data is maintained for about 30 days so it’s research value is limited. There appear to be 3 other police departments that are uploading data and their archiving may differ. Washington D.C. police have retained crime activity reports for 2006 and 2007. Search by date or address, with an optional selection of crime type, to see a map with icons of the various reported crimes and their general location. A popup provides a description of the incident.

On the crime theme, VineLink has a new look but the basic features are the same. It still doesn’t list the participating jails and prisons, so you just have to figure that out when you search within a state or county. The opening page has a color coded map of the U.S., designating states that have “statewide VINE” (blue) and those in which some counties participate (kinda red). As in all criminal records matters “statewide” doesn’t mean the whole state. Gee, who would’ve thought! In the case of California, it means about 15 counties and, as all of us here know, it does not include the Department of Corrections.

Go to MapBuilder if you want an easy utility to create your own map themes and plot places, incidents and things. See the variety of maps that users have built and search by map places and other characteristics.

I’ve pointed to this collection of free people finding and genealogy tools before. The site wizard, Steve Morse, has added a Social Security number decoder for matching the state of issuance with the number range. It’s a handy place to go when you need to do a quick check.

A pair of computer science students are building the California Newspaper Project, an early stage venture to create a database to search and view entries in historical newspapers. Many other fee-based products, such as NewspaperArchive.com and WorldVitalRecords.com, have traveled down this path. Currently, the San Francisco Call is the only paper indexed. Read more about the development and the aim of this project. State and university archives, which collect historical materials, including newspapers, are listed in this Columbia University assembled subject guide.

There’s a flood of search engines that query the social networking sites only, which may be helpful for finding a site that you already know about, but they won’t snare many sites that you’ll find through a major search engine. I’ve been listing these in my PI buzz Alert newsletter (sign up by selecting the “Subscribe” button in the right sidebar) as they come online. Formulate different queries for a known site through the various search engines to get a sense for how they work and their effectiveness. PeekYou is still in a test mode. Enter a user name as it appears at the social networking site, or a first name and location at AfterVote to retrieve matches at Web sites and social media sites. Read/WriteWeb drew up a list of alternative search engines earlier this year.

This is the only site I’ve seen that aggregates the indexes of Recorder documents of multiple counties. The Oklahoma County Clerk Public Records is a project of the Oklahoma county clerks in conjunction with Kellpro, which develops software applications for Oklahoma and Texas county and state agencies. Search across all 28 Oklahoma counties that are currently in this database by name. Registration is free but required to get online access to document images.

The Salt Lake Tribune has join the media rush to launch databases of public records. Unlike those others, Utah’s Right To Know has collected statewide and local databases at a dedicated Web site, not a page buried in the online edition. Some of the data are available elsewhere - such as the sex offenders - but the site is also collecting government salaries in one database, which is being culled from local, county and state agencies. Search Public Employee Salaries by name or agency, or across all agencies. A drop down menu displays those currently available. The search mechanism for Utah Divorces and Utah District Court Charges allows a query by first or last name.

Read the Tribune’s story on the Utahsright.com project, which the paper claims has generated a lot of excitement among readers. You wouldn’t know it from the few posts at the topical discussion forums.

I guess a fresh, private industry has sprung up that’s developing and storing the public records databases for some newspapers. The Scoop recently explored the issue of outsourcing and got a miffed comment from the director of one of these companies.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Find a Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator, is an online mapping tool and address finder that includes:

* Private and public facilities that are licensed, certified, or otherwise approved for inclusion by their State substance abuse agency

* Treatment facilities administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the Department of Defense.

Search by city and state and expand the range up to 100 miles. Results are mapped and a list of facilities, with address, phone, hours and types of treatment offered is generated. Or find a facility by name or partial name only.

If all goes according to current plans, by January 2008 Cook County, Illinois will become one of the first counties in the country to digitize vital records and make them available online. The birth, death and marriage records to be made available are not for recent events. The genealogical records include birth certificates that are at least 75 years old, marriage certificates more than 50 years old, and death certificates more than 20 years old.

A recommendation by the Nevada Supreme Court Commission on Preservation, Access and Sealing of Court Records would tighten the regulations on sealing court records. The current standard allows judges to seal records upon request. The commission policy would require a compelling reason for sealing court records and would authorize any member of the public to request a sealed record be opened. Reported in the Las Vegas Sun

Judges in Oklahoma counties are holding closed proceedings of special drug and mental health courts, even though they are not required to be closed. Judges are citing federal law which mandates health records be kept confidential.

The Colorado Supreme Court has instituted a new rule that delays the fulfillment of court record requests for up to 3 days, ostensibly to redact personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank account numbers and other personal-identification numbers, such as those on passports or student IDs. This is another instance of the current trend in government to give supremacy to personal privacy over the public’s right to know the activities of its government.

The Delaware Attorney General cannot oppose state agencies which decline public records requests, even when they do so in violation of the law. The News Journal sought salary information for employees of the Delaware Psychiatric Center. The Department of Health and Social Services denied the request, then the newspaper appealed to the Attorney General, who declined to take enforcement action.

The Delaware Psychiatric Center is an agency of state government and so the Department of Justice is precluded by statute from investigating any violations of the Freedom of Information Act alleged to have been committed by the Delaware Psychiatric Center.

The County of Santa Clara released a document listing the salaries of county employees in response to a Public Records Act request by the San Jose Mercury News. At any other time they probably wouldn’t have considered this a public record, but the recent California Supreme Court decision doesn’t leave an opening for government agencies to oppose release. The 389 page document covers Santa Clara County employees from June 19, 2006 through June 17, 2007.

The City of San Jose employee salary database for 2006 is also at the San Jose Mercury (registration required), or you can print the list, organized by salary, at the PI buzz Documents page. Both lists include employee name, job position and compensation.

South Dakota state government employees salaries are searchable by name or position. SouthDakotaInfo, the Argus Leader Web page of information databases, is listed among the media collections on my What’s New At… page, as is an expanded list of Missouri databases.

Add other resources to the California public records database links, PRA letter generator and government agencies that are being compiled at WikiFOIA. Other states are also here. If you want a good collection of all types of government databases go to the wiki, GODORT. Like any wiki, you can register and contribute sites to either of these.