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Home Finding Government Data Removed By The 2025 Presidential

Bonisiwe Shabane
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home finding government data removed by the 2025 presidential

Due to shifting information priorities espoused by the 2025 presidential administration, some government data has been removed from government websites. In response, librarians and information professionals across the country have joined forces to help locate and provide access to these removed data sources. Be sure to stay up to date on the administration's decisions as many of them impact information access: 2025 Administration Transition Information & Resources | Council on Governmental Relations This guide was originally compiled by the librarians at American University in Washington, DC. The original guide can be viewed here:American University Data Rescue Guide This LibGuide is a living document that is continually being edited and improved.

Much of the original content was derived from a Google document titled “Data Rescue Efforts,” which circulated in February 2020. The collaborative group behind that document has since grown into the Data Rescue Project. We gratefully acknowledge their foundational work and the ongoing, collective efforts of the data preservation community. Below is a concise guide to help you locate US federal government data that may have been removed or redacted following the Presidential Executive Orders that went into effect on January 31, 2025. Please note that this guide only covers how to find removed information. For current or active government data, you should use Data.gov, which remains the best resource for discovering existing federal data.

Before you begin searching for rescued data, it's a good idea to double-check that the information is truly gone from official sources: If you have confirmed that the data or information is missing, move on to archival resources. Call the Wilson Library front desk to get help by phone during open hours, or leave a voicemail for next-day follow-up. Use the web form to email us. We respond within 1 to 2 business days. Real people, no bots.

All day and night, with help from librarians everywhere. The 2025 United States government online resource removals are a series of web page and dataset deletions and modifications across multiple United States federal agencies beginning in January 2025. Following executive orders from President Donald Trump's administration, government organizations removed or modified over 8,000 web pages and approximately 3,000 datasets. The changes primarily affected content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, gender identity, public health research, environmental policy, and various social programs, and other topics Trump and the Republican Party has expressed... Major affected agencies included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which saw over 3,000 pages altered or removed, and the Census Bureau, which removed about 3,000 pages of research materials. While some content was later restored, the modifications represented significant changes to federal government data accessibility and sparked legal challenges from healthcare advocacy groups.

Agencies of the United States government share open data for many uses. There are many civic technology, research, and business applications which rely on access to government data.[1] Dataset deletion can be useful maintenance or the result of poor archiving practice.[2] There is little government regulation... In 2009, Data.gov was established to improve public access to high value, machine-readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.[5] In 2019, the OPEN Government Data Act ordered agencies to share... Various federal agencies release data on their own websites. In 2019, Trump signed into law the Foundation for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which established a system for utilizing data to construct evidence-based policy. Trump's second administration showed a dramatic pivot from this law passed during his first administration.[6]

In late January 2025, organizations under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) paused their external communication during a review.[7] This guide provides access to and information about United States government data and webpages that have been removed since January 2025. It is divided into Environmental Data, Health and Medical Data, Other Data, and Government Websites. A list of groups working to rescue government data is also available.These resources are intended for research purposes and will be updated as new information is available. If you are have data resources to share, please contact your subject librarian. When searching for government data that may have been removed, search in this order:

Not sure what dataset you need? Here are some search tips. Your subject librarian can also help you with this. For help evaluating data quality, the Data Quality Literacy Guidebook is a good place to start. As you search for information, save your sources, particularly datasets and government publications. Note the date you were last able to access a source in case it isn’t available later.

Check the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and other repositories for removed data sources or websites. There has been a dramatic shift around federal government resources and information since the change from the Biden to the Trump administration. This guide is intended to help you understand what's going on and find alternative access to resources. Please be aware that links to federal resources found in the Library catalog, on our Library Guides, and elsewhere may be affected by these changes. The best place to search for archives of missing federal webpages is the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, and you are welcome to contact me if you need further assistance with federal resources. The federal web landscape changes with every new administration to reflect changes in policy, which means there has always been a problem of certain federal information/websites being taken down when a new administration begins.

The difference this time around is the scale and speed of change. Entire offices, such as USAID and the Department of Education, are being closed or threatened with closure. Large numbers of websites, datasets, articles, and other types of content have been deleted or altered. Research grants have been terminated. Massive dismissals of staff mean fewer people to research, create, publish, and maintain information resources such as websites and databases. Resources we have relied on for years may no longer be available, and access to certain federal webpages may change from day-to-day or even hour-to-hour.

Information related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) has been hit especially hard, following White House executive actions including new executive orders (EOs) and rescission of EOs from previous administrations. Environmental justice, vaccines and other health information, census research, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and other important issues have also seen significant changes across federal websites. There's a helpful Wikipedia page that outlines some of the most affected agencies and resources. While it may be obvious why these changes to federal information resources are problematic, the American Library Association's Key Principles of Government Information provides a more concrete framework for understanding why most government information... Many of you reading this page may find yourself aligned with the ideas expressed in the ALA document, and it may help you in articulating those ideas to others. I will also point out that Federal Depository Libraries are now receiving very little in the way of printed publications from the federal government, so there may be no offline "backup" copy of federal...

This interactive map from the Government Publishing Office (GPO) shows the titles still being published in hard copy and the libraries that receive those hard copies. The Trump Administration (2025- ) has taken action to downsize federal government agencies through a variety of tactics including the use of Executive Orders. The impact of these changes has been dramatic and is ongoing. What follows are links to various efforts to track those changes and relocate information related to grant funding as well as research data and publications. This guide does not claim to be comprehensive. NU Tracking Efforts | Grant Termination Trackers | Additional Trackers | Lists of Lost / Recovered Resources | Data Resources Captured | Archived US Federal Agency Websites | Tools for Data Rescue | Web...

⚠️ Former members of the Census Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC), which was terminated in February, have formed a new Independent Census Scientific Advisory Group (I-CSAC). It appears from their website that their first meeting is scheduled for September 18 [2025]. "While no longer a federal advisory body, I-CSAC remains committed to transparency, scientific rigor, and the principle that reliable census data is vital to guiding public policy, ensuring fair representation and resource allocation, and... Access historical versions of U.S. government websites from before January 20, 2025 with a simple URL change. How it works: Take any .gov URL and add wayback.com right after .gov, and you'll be redirected to the Wayback Machine's archived version of the page.

Simple domain: www.epa.gov → www.epa.govwayback.com Specific page: www.whitehouse.gov/administration → www.whitehouse.govwayback.com/administration Complex URL: www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2 → www.congress.govwayback.com/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2 This LibGuide is a living document that is continually being edited and improved. Much of the original content was derived from a Google document titled “Data Rescue Efforts,” which circulated in February 2020. The collaborative group behind that document has since grown into the Data Rescue Project.

We gratefully acknowledge their foundational work and the ongoing, collective efforts of the data preservation community. Below is a concise guide to help you locate US federal government data that may have been removed or redacted following the Presidential Executive Orders that went into effect on January 31, 2025. Please note that this guide only covers how to find removed information. For current or active government data, you should use Data.gov, which remains the best resource for discovering existing federal data. Before you begin searching for rescued data, it's a good idea to double-check that the information is truly gone from official sources: If you have confirmed that the data or information is missing, move on to archival resources.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is the largest web archive, capturing snapshots of websites across the internet over time. It allows you to view websites as they appeared on specific dates in the past.

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