Possibly the most venerable tool in investigative reporting is campaign cash. "Follow the money" is not only an axiom in the journalism trade but a reminder of the historic events that motivated many of us to become reporters in the first place. Since its inception, IRE and NICAR's Database Library has collected electronic campaign data from the Federal Elections Commission, cleaned it up and made it available to members for a modest fee. Continuing that tradition, we have today added the 2010 election cycle data to the collection. In addition, campaign data will now come in three formats: as comma-delimited text files (importable by most database managers), as dBase files and as SQL batch files. We hope this will make the data even more convenient to use and appeal to users of different types of software. FEC data is available both as a single purchase, for which you get a snapshot of the data as of the week purchased, and as a subscription. Subscribers get the added convenience of being able to download their data anytime they want and letting Database Library programs update the dataset weekly. It should be noted that at this time, NICAR collects only itemized data from the FEC. We do not collect electronic disclosures, which come directly from the campaigns and are not vetted by the FEC (but are more current). Questions? Call the Data Library at 573-884-7711 or e-mail us.