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Government Information Data Rescue

Introduction

This guide is a living resource for those concerned about access to publicly available government data. The current situation is in flux; we, along with many other academic institutions and the library and archives community, are monitoring the situation. This guide will be updated as we identify additional resources.

The Data Rescue Project: 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.

General Searching Tips

Best Bets for Finding Archived Government Data

Census 

  • 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; best source for machine-readable datasets.

CDC:  

  • Public Environmental Data Project: Access to the CDC's Social Vulnerability Index and Environmental Justice Index. The Public Environmental Data Partners are committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data. 
  • ICPSR: ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. These data sources cover a broad range of disciplines including political science, sociology, demography, economics, history, education, gerontology, criminal justice, public health, foreign policy, and law.
  • ICPSR Data Lumos: 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. DataLumos accepts deposits of public data resources from the community and recommendations of public data resources that ICPSR itself might add to DataLumos.
  • UCSB LSIT Data Mirroring: UCSB Letters Sciences IT Archives of Public Data Sets. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data archive from January 2025.​

Dept. of Energy: 

  • Open Energy Data Initiative: Provides free access to data generated from efforts funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and supporting projects and partnerships.

​Dept. of Education: 

  • UCSB LSIT Data Mirroring: UCSB Letters Sciences IT Archives of Public Data SetsPublic Data from Department of Education and NCES.

EPA: 

  • Healthy Regions Policy Lab at UIUC: Datasets and guidelines for use downloaded from The Center for Disease Control (CDC), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
  • 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).

HRSA:

  • Healthy Regions Policy Lab at UIUC: Datasets and guidelines for use downloaded from The Center for Disease Control (CDC), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

NCBI genome data: 

  • IGSR The International Genome Sample Response (1000 genomes data mirrored to UK)

NIH: 

  • UCSB LSIT Data Mirroring: UCSB Letters Sciences IT Archives of Public Data Sets. The following repository contains links and some sample code written in R to help you parse NIH project data.​

NOAA:

  • The Climate Mirror Project: The Climate Mirror Project is trying to mirror and safely archive U.S. Govt. websites and datasets related to climate, climate change, and global warming. The Project started from a tweet of journalist Eric Holthaus. The project is currently being lead by University of Pennsylvania's Data Refuge Project.
  • UCSB LSIT Data Mirroring UCSB Letters Sciences IT Archives of Public Data Sets. NOAA Sea Level Data retrieved February 2025.
  • Internet Archive (heat-index files) Internet Archive Intermediate data files for computing heat index and heat waves downloaded from URLs starting with https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/societal-impacts/heat-stress/ on 2025-01-17.​​​