We talk to many, many patrons each month who are searching for financial assistance and other benefit programs to help them with housing, education, utilities, and just getting by. Our first recommendation is to check out Govbenefits.gov. We found it to be a comprehensive, easy-to-use resource to identify state and federal benefit programs. At the time of the site’s launch in 2002, it featured 55 programs, representing the ten original Federal agency partners. Today, the website now includes over 1,000 programs representing 17 Federal partners. (That’s from their About section).

Now the site has been redesigned, renamed, and reorganized. It is now Benefits.gov or Benefits.gov en Espanol.

As part of the redesign, visitors can now personalize their results and save program information to their own confidential profile.

And you can also follow them on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BenefitsGOV (yes, we do follow them. How do you think we heard about the new “do”?)