Searching for Federal Data
UPDATED May 9, 2025
As Maryland’s State Library Resource Center, the Pratt Library is delegated by the state to provide transparent, equitable public access to information and services. The mission of the federal data strategy is "to fully leverage the value of federal data for mission, service, and the public good by guiding the federal government in practicing ethical governance, conscious design, and a learning culture."
Data Archiving
Since January 20, 2025, federal government websites and their data have been changed, abridged, or removed by presidential executive orders. Data archiving, or the capture and storage of online content, is a research activity. However, since 2025, a determined effort has been undertaken to preserve federal government datasets as well as websites of federal agencies.
The SLRC Searching for Federal Data Research Guide is a compilation of archived websites and datasets; alternate sources of data and research provided before and since 2025; a goldmine of academic library guides to sources for archived data and websites; and a bibliography of news reporting with links to even more sources.
The guide will be updated at regular intervals.
Table of Contents
- Data Archiving Efforts Since January 2025
- Alternate Sources of Data from State & Nongovernmental Organizations
- Library Guides to Data Archiving
- Bibliography of Reporting & Announcements on Data Scrubs
Data Archiving Efforts Since January 2025
Federal government websites and datasets of subjects from agencies across the federal government have been collected for effective research and public use by volunteers, organizations, and university libraries.
Compilations on Assorted Subjects
- Archive.org: End of Term 2024 Web Crawls
- Archive Team: US Government
- Brookings Institution, Hamilton Project: Tracking Government Expenditures in Real Time
- Brown University: US Federal Government Data Backup
- Cornell University Research & Innovation: Updates on Federal Policy Changes
- Data Rescue Project
- Current Efforts
- Data Rescue Tracker
- Data Rescue Efforts (early version of Data Rescue Tracker)
- GovDiff (Ben Borgers and Jerome Paulos)
- Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab Team
- Internet Archive: Democracy’s Library, Government Publications for Everyone
- r/DataHoarder: US Government FTP and HTTP File Servers
- Taking Note of Removed Videos from US Government Video Channels
- University of California Curation Center: Government Data at Risk
- University of Michigan Institute for Social Research: DataLumos
Environmental Science
- Climate Mirror Project: US Federal Climate Data
- Columbia Climate School: Silencing Science Tracker Resources
- Public Environmental Data Partners
- National Security Archive: Climate Change Transparency Project
Healthcare and Public Health
- ACASignups.net: FDA.gov Archive Index
- CDC Guidelines on Birth Control and Reproductive Rights Issues, Sexual Health, Intimate Partner Violence
- FDA.gov Archive Index
- Internet Archive: CDC Datasets Uploaded Before January 28, 2025
Library Science
Alternate Sources of Data from State & Nongovernmental Organizations
New and existing sources provide live alternatives to unavailable federal government data sources for users.
Compilations on Assorted Topics
- Data Curation Network
- Data Rescue Project: Existing Alternative Data Sources
- Harvard Dataverse
- Investigative Reporters & Editors: Resources for Data
- ProPublica: Data Store Archive 2013-2023
Business and Economy
Healthcare and Public Health
- ACASignups: FDA.gov Archive Index
- American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society: National Cancer Database
- Association of Health Care Journalists’ Health Journalism Data
- Commonwealth Fund: State Medicaid and CHIP Fact Sheets
- Data Rescue Project: Public Health
- Health Care Cost Institute: Private Health Insurers Data
- Immunize.org: Archives of CDC’s Vaccine Information Statements
- International health data such as Health Canada
- Johns Hopkins University: Data Sources for Health and Medical Research
- KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation): State Health Facts
- NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Department of Population Health: City Health Dashboard
- National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network: PCORnet Data Reports
- ProPublica: Dollars for Docs 2013-2018
- ProPublica: Nursing Home Data Compare and Nursing Home Inspect (before 2022)
- National Rural Health Association: Rural Hospital Data by State
- State health department websites, such as California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal
- University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation: Topics of Health
- University of Washington Population Health Institute: County Health Data
- University of Washington School of Medicine, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation: Global Health Data Exchange
Social Science
Library Guides to Data Archiving
A compilation of academic library guides to web and data rescue efforts to supplement this research guide.
- Data Rescue Project: Library Guides
- American University: Government Information Data Rescue
- Butler University: Alternative Sources for Archived Government Data
- Claremont Colleges: Federal Government Data Rescue
- George Washington University: Data Preservation Efforts and Data Sources
- GODORT: 2025 Presidential Transition
- Hamilton College: How Do I Find Statistics and Data?
- Haverford College: Web Archiving and Data Rescue
- Ohio State University: 2025 Federal Data Availability
- Salem State: Data Preservation 2025
- Syracuse University: Numeric Data Resources: Preserving Government Data
- Trinity College: Finding and Preserving Government Data
- University of Albany: Government Info Beyond .gov
- University of California, Merced: Looking for U.S. Federal Data?
- University of Minnesota: Finding Government Information During the 2025 Administration Transition
- University of Notre Dame: Archived Federal Data 2025
- University of Utah: 2025 Data Rescue Overview
- University of Virginia: Government Information Data Rescue
- Tufts University: Archived Data (General)
- University of California, San Diego: US Government Information, Trump Trackers
Bibliography of Reporting & Announcements on Data Scrubs
A brief bibliography of news reports of redactions and announcements of data archiving efforts.
General
Harper, Lauren. “Here’s How You Can Help Save Government Data.” Freedom of the Press Foundation. February 9, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Jingnan, Huo, and Quil Lawrence. “Here Are All the Ways People Are Disappearing from Government Websites.” National Public Radio. March 11, 2025. Accessed April 12, 2025.
Jacobs, James. “Call to Arms: What Government Information Librarians Can Do to Help Save Critical Federal Information from Being Lost.” Free Government Information. February 5, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Kauffman, Kelly. “The Fight to Preserve Federal Government Data.” Muckrock. February 4, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2025.
Long, Emily. “Where to Find All Those Deleted Government Websites.” LifeHacker. February 5, 2025. Accessed April 4, 2025.
Lucas, Julian. “The Volunteer Data Hoarders Resisting Trump’s Purge.” New Yorker. March 14, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Miller, Naseem S. “As the US Government Removes Health Websites and Data, Here’s a List of Non-government Data Alternatives and Archives.” Journalist’s Resource. February 3, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Mithani, Jasmine. “What We Saved from the Government’s Data Purge.” The 19th. February 4, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Nietzel, Michael T. “Harvard, Others Saving Data as Trump’s Team Scrubs Federal Webpages.” Forbes. February 9, 2025. Accessed April 10, 2025.
Panella. Chris. “Pages Have Been Disappearing from Government and Military Websites. Here's What's Already Purged”. Business Insider. February 8, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
PolicyMap Team. “Purged Federal Agency Data Available on PolicyMap.” PolicyMap. February 3, 2025. Accessed April 4, 2025.
Rosen, Brianna, and Maya Nir. “Data Preservation Under the Trump Administration.” Just Security. April 16, 2025. Accessed April 16, 2025.
Singer, Ethan. “Thousands of Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday.” New York Times. February 3, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Suber, Peter. “The Trump Administrations on Open Access Research.” Harvard University Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Updated daily. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Wikipedia Editors. “2025 United States Government Online Resource Removals.” Wikipedia. April 8, 2025. Accessed April 11, 2025.
Yourish, Karen, et al. “These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration.” New York Times. March 7, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Budget and Funding
Diamond, Dan, Natanson, Hannah, and Carolyn N. Johnson. “DOGE Takes Over Federal Grants Website, Wresting Control of Billions.” Washington Post. April 11, 2025. Accessed April 11, 2025.
Levine, Sam. "Watchdog Group Sues White House After Government Spending Tracker Removed.” Guardian. April 15, 2025. Accessed April 16, 2025.
Environmental Science
Beamer, Anika Jane. “‘Canary in a Coal Mine’: Data Scientists Restore a Climate Justice Tool Taken Down by Trump.” Inside Climate News. February 4, 2025. Accessed April 23, 2025.
Elkind, Peter. “The Latest Trump and DOGE Casualty: Energy Data.” Propublica. May 5, 2025. Accessed May 5, 2025.
Plumer, Brad. “Trump Administration Cuts Funding and Staff for Flagship Climate Report.” New York Times. April 10, 2025. Accessed April 11, 2025.
Schwenk, Katya. “The Government’s Chemical Disaster Tracking Tool Just Went Dark.” The Lever. April 21, 2025. Accessed April 23, 2025. Healthcare and Public Health
Healthcare and Public Health
AHCJ Staff. “Blog: What Journalists Should Know About Disappearing Federal Health Data.” Health Journalism. January 31, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Carey, Bill. “National Firefighter Registry for Cancer [Registration Section] Goes Offline Following NIOSH Layoffs.” FireRescue1: Lexipol Industry News. April 2, 2025. Accessed April 16, 2025.
Diamond, Dan, and Lauren Weber. “White House Embraces Lab Leak as ‘True’ Pandemic Origin, Axes Covid Website.” Washington Post. April 18, 2025. Accessed April 18, 2026.
Frieden, Jan. “Removing Health Data from Government Websites Puts Patients at Risk, Experts Warn.” MedPage Today. February 15, 2024. Accessed April 10, 2025.
Hindy, Joe. “How to Access Important Health Info that’s Been Scrubbed from the CDC Site.” Yahoo News. February 4, 2025. Accessed April 10, 2025.
Miller, Naseem S. “As the US Government Removes Health Websites and Data, Here’s a List of Non-government Data Alternatives and Archives.” Journalist’s Resource. February 3, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
O’Connell-Domenech. “Scientists, Researchers Work to Archive Federal Health Data Purged by Trump Administration.” The Hill. February 8, 2025. Accessed April 4, 2025.
Stone, Will. “Judge Orders Restoration of Federal Health Websites.” National Public Radio. February 11, 2025. Accessed March 15, 2025.
Stone, Will, and Pien Huang. “Some Federal Health Websites Restored, Others Still Down, After Data Purge.” National Public Radio. February 6, 2025. Accessed March 15, 2025.
LGBTQIA+
Lang, Nico. “Trump Is Purging Federal Websites of LGBTQ+ Content.” Them. February 7, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2025.
Ulaby, Neda. “NPS Takes Down Web Pages Dedicated to Transgender Activists and LGBTQ History.” National Public Radio. March 5, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2025.
Military
Balk, Tim. “Arlington Cemetery Website Loses Pages on Black Veterans, Women and Civil War.” New York Times. March 14, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Levin, Kevin M. “US Army Deletes Lesson Plans Focusing on African American History, the Civil War and Women's History at Arlington National Cemetery.” Civil War Memory. March 8, 2025. Accessed March 19, 2025.
Need Help?
As Maryland's State Library Resource Center, the Enoch Pratt Free Library has a broad collection of resources for evaluating and verifying sources of information. If you need additional assistance please contact us.
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