Googling something or someone? If the state of Florida has public records about your subject, they might show up in your search results.
Many state agencies make numerous public records available online, but the information hasn't been indexed by the search engines at Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., the three most popular.
And that has made the data hard to find. If you want to know a school's test scores, for example, you have often have know your state Department of Education's Web address and then know how the agency stores and retrieves information.
Under a new partnership announced Monday by Gov. Charlie Crist, Google Inc. is providing free consulting and software that help make more files recognizable to most search engines.
Florida joins five other states — Arizona, California, Utah, Virginia and Michigan — already participating in Google's effort. Google hopes to get local governments involved in the effort.
