Digital Archivists Work to Save Public Data from Disappearing

For over 30 years, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has preserved government websites and datasets critical for research, as detailed in a new report by Spectrum.

These records, from agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation, provide essential data for scientists and engineers. If they disappear, research validity and historical accuracy are at risk, as noted by Spectrum.

Government data removal is not a new phenomenon. After 9/11, the Bush administration deleted millions of bytes of information for security reasons. The Obama administration took a different approach, launching Data.gov in 2009 to expand public access, as reported by Spectrum.

During Trump’s first term, researchers at the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative found some government websites inaccessible, and references to “climate change” were erased from multiple pages, says Spectrum.

During Trump’s second term, data preservation concerns have escalated. In February, The New York Times reported that more than 8,000 government web pages and databases were taken down.

Some have since reappeared, but Grist found changes, including the removal of terms like “climate change” and “clean energy.” On February 11, legal challenges followed, a federal judge ordered the restoration of certain CDC and FDA datasets, as reported by Spectrum.

To combat this loss, digital archivists have taken action. The Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School has copied Data.gov’s entire 16-terabyte archive—containing over 311,000 datasets. They use automated queries through APIs to keep it updated daily.

Archivists play a vital role in safeguarding knowledge by maintaining historical records for future generations. The loss of vital information through their absence would result in rewritten public records which would restrict future research possibilities.