Section 1062 of the New York City Charter requires the New York city commission on Public Information and Communication to publish a "Public Data Directory" describing the computerized databases maintained by City agencies. This is the first "Public Data Directory" published pursuant to that requirement.

Publication of this first edition represents an important step towards fulfilling the goal of improving public access to information about the wide variety of computerized data maintained by the city. Information maintained by City agencies is increasingly being stored in computers. Until now, however, there has been no source of information available to researchers, community groups, businesses, and other members of the public regarding the types of electronic data kept by City agencies, much of which is required by law to be accessible to the public.