Interactive Voice Response (IVR),

  Website: http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/ .

One of the Fairfax County Kiosks

Library director Sam Clay sees e government at its simplest, as a tool of service 

delivery and at it most complex, as the engagement of the critical mass of the population

with the county. In Fairfax, the county looked at what it wanted to provide and then

sought to identify the best format or interface to deliver it, he said.

Early on, the county perceived the library service as a key player in its plans. Mr. Clay

is keen to point out the importance of following the Enquiry Path in web design, which

helped shape the interface in the county's web pages and in the public kiosks, which are

spread around Fairfax as follows:

County office locations

4

Libraries

16

Malls

3

Garages

1

Hospitals

2

The services via the kiosks are online to the County WAN. They are not yet available

over the Internet, but this is planned for 2002. Kiosks are seen as alternatives to county

offices. The cash benefit of this type of service delivery is an issue, but  no magic 

formula  has been devised to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of this model. The

kiosk project is known as CRiS (Community Resident Information Services) and dates

from 1996. Since then, the County has received 4 million enquiries via the units.

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