Many states and local municipalities have rosters of city, county and state public officials available in a single PDF document that can be saved to your computer for later reference. Don’t confuse these rosters with the state telephone directories, which list key individuals in state government and their departments. Rosters provide names of elected and appointed officials and associated agency, with street addresses, email addresses and Web sites. Save this to your computer or print it out so you’ll know to whom to direct your public records requests.

The California Secretary of State describes the California Roster, which is online, for each of the past 5 years.

The California Roster, also known as the Roster of Public Officials, is a listing of California’s public officeholders, including our United States government officials, the Constitutional officers, members of the State Senate and Assembly, the Judicial branch, county officials, and Incorporated city and town officials.

It also includes a history of California’s office holders, descriptions of the state emblems, a listing of all state agencies, departments, boards and commissions, a listing of the unincorporated areas, and information on the state officials for each state in the nation.

The current Missouri Roster details every executive, legislative and judicial office holder, as well as each county commissioner and department director.

Some counties also publish a Roster, which, like this one produced by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, contain the same information down to the city level.

The Iowa Roster is located at the legislative site.

The Rhode Island Department of Administration Web site has the Directory of City and Town Officials, along with many other government publications. So you may have to search various government Web sites to find where a Roster is housed.

There are also 50 state directories of single agency types. Montana has a Roster of State Livestock Health Officials.

Suddenly, government directories have become more intriguing.

Courts

The North Dakota Supreme Court district court calendars and court case information can be searched by name, citation number, or case number. Municipal court case information is also available for Bismarck, Mandan, Dickinson, Williston, Minot, Devils Lake, Jamestown, Wahpeton, and West Fargo. Supreme Court Announcement

Crime

The Rhode Island Department of Corrections Inmate Search provides details for those currently incarcerated in either a Rhode Island or out of state prison or under home confinement. The database can be searched by partial name and returns an extensive amount of data on past convictions. [Reported in beSpacific]

Search Engines

DormItem is a Craigslist for colleges. Search within a school or across all listed schools by keyword to find people who are selling stuff or have apartments for rent.