Question : How do I share a list across an entire site collection?

We have a staff directory list son the top-level of our Intranet site.  How do I connect a web-part on a sub-site to this list?  Basically, how do share this list on the top-level across the entire site collection?  We are using WSS 3.0 (do not have MOSS 2007).  Thank you.

Answer : How do I share a list across an entire site collection?

wss 3.0 / moss 2007 have a more robust way to create this kind of list yourself, but there are no built in web parts that do it.
see here for Cross List Queries (discusses improvements in wss 3.0 / moss 2007 over previous version of sharepoint):
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1246.shtml

here is another example:
http://www.corasworks.net/Products/WorkplaceSuite/Features/parentchilddisplays.asp

another possibility, which may or may not work for your situation, is to create different views of the parent list (one for each department), and then use the page viewer web part to display that department's view of the parent list on the child site.  not sure if that will accomplish your goal or not.