TY - JOUR AB - This article sets out the writer's impressions gleaned from an extensive examination of the homepages mounted on the World Wide Web by governments and government agencies. The writer is critical of the quality of the information made available and identifies some possible explanations for the perceived shortcomings of the homepages. A rush to establish a Net presence has encouraged agencies to mount pages without having clearly defined their intended audience. Much of the information is in the form of ‘HTMLised’ documents originally created for other purposes. Frequently these are accessed from pages structured from the point of view of the agency, without reference to the perceptions and needs of the users of the information. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the writer proposes a more rigorous evaluation of Web publishing projects which are led by information professionals and others involved in the direct delivery of information services, with a smaller role for IT personnel than is currently the case. VL - 14 IS - 2 SN - 0264-0473 DO - 10.1108/eb045459 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045459 AU - Johnson Julie PY - 1996 Y1 - 1996/01/01 TI - Government Web pages: the lights are on but nobody is home T2 - The Electronic Library PB - MCB UP Ltd SP - 149 EP - 156 Y2 - 2024/03/28 ER -