LibGuides: Disappearing Federal Data: Home

What is happening to federal data?

Critical data is missing from hundreds of federal government websites. This guide provides background information about the current situation and leads researchers to alternative sites that have archived the content currently unavailable through federal agency websites. This is a fluid situation, so this page will be updated as new sources become available.

The following sources provide background information and context on the current situation.

Environmental Data & Governance Initiative
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is a research collaborative and network of diverse professionals promoting evidence-based policy-making and public interest science that advances the Environmental Right-to-Know (ERTK).
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We document, contextualize, and analyze current changes to environmental data and governance practices through multidisciplinary and cross-professional collaborative work; foster the stewardship and expansion of public knowledge through building participatory civic technologies and infrastructures; create new communities of practice to enable government and industry accountability; and promote models and tools that emphasize community participation at all scales, both within EDGI and in our public-facing tools.
The George Washington University National Security Archive
Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents ("the world's largest nongovernmental collection" according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.
Harvard Kennedy School - Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy
At this time of division and distrust, our broken information environment poses a threat to the public good. The Shorenstein Center is addressing this challenge at its root by examining how essential information is created, conveyed and consumed.
Silencing Science Tracker
The Silencing Science Tracker is a joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. It tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information, since the November 2016 election.

Data Preservation Projects

The following sites provide reliable archived copies of federal data.

Data.gov Archive - Harvard's Library Innovation Lab
In recent months the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab has created a data vault to download, sign as authentic, and make available copies of public government data that is most valuable to researchers, scholars, civil society and the public at large across every field. To begin, we have collected major portions of the datasets tracked by data.gov, federal Github repositories, and PubMed.
Data Lumos (ICPSR)
DataLumos is an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources. ICPSR has a long commitment to safekeeping and disseminating US government and other social science data.
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DataLumos accepts deposits of public data resources from the community and recommendations of public data resources that ICPSR itself might add to DataLumos.
Data Rescue Project
Clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk.
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The Data Rescue Project is a coordinated effort among a group of data organizations, including IASSIST, RDAP, and members of the Data Curation Network. Our goal is to serve as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk. We want to know what is happening in the community so that we can coordinate focus. Efforts include: data gathering, data curation and cleaning, data cataloging, and providing sustained access and distribution of data assets. (from the website)
EDGI
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is a research collaborative and network of diverse professionals promoting evidence-based policy-making and public interest science that advances the Environmental Right-to-Know (ERTK).
Data Rescue Tracker
The Data Rescue Tracker aims to provide a consolidated overview of who is downloading which dataset from which government websites.
End of Term Archive
Captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations.
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The End of Term Web Archive captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations. The EOT has thus far preserved websites from administration changes in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.
GovWayback Archive
Access historical versions of U.S. government websites from before January 20, 2025 with a simple URL change.
IPUMS: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series
Census and survey data from around the world.
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IPUMS provides census and survey data from around the world integrated across time and space. IPUMS integration and documentation makes it easy to study change, conduct comparative research, merge information across data types, and analyze individuals within family and community contexts. Data and services available free of charge.
Public Environmental Data Project
The Public Environmental Data Partners are committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data.
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We are a volunteer coalition of several environmental, justice, and policy organizations, researchers across several universities, archivists, and students who rely on federal datasets and tools to support critical research, advocacy, policy, and litigation work. To gather insights on what data to preserve, we reached out to our networks, which consist largely of environmental justice groups and networks, state and local government climate offices, and academic researchers. We compiled a large list of federal databases and tools, and prioritized them based on their relative impact, our confidence that we could archive them, and the relative effort it would take to obtain and archive them.

Policy Map

PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
PolicyMap is a U.S. national data and mapping tool that combines a curated, comprehensive geographic data library with mapping and analytics tools. University faculty, researchers, and students use it to create maps of up to five layers, export trend-charts with key benchmarks, download data for use in other tools and generate on-the-fly reports. Users will be prompted to create an account using their Wofford credentials during their first use of PolicyMap.

PolicyMap is providing the following data that has been removed from federal websites:

CDC PLACES (Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates)
Social Vulnerability Index (SVI)
Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)