INS developing electronic library

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is developing an electronic library for handling Freedom of Information Act requests.

Alexandria, Va.-based Sentel Corp. is working under a five-year, $1.7 million contract to create the system. The intended result is a Web site where the public can view electronically formatted documents. The system also will help INS comply with the Government Paperwork Elimination Act.

In building the system, Sentel is scanning several hundred thousand documents and formatting them for Web display, said James Garrett, the company's president and chief executive officer.

The documents that INS intends to make available include statistics, court case transcripts and the text of administrative decisions.