‘Things were going dark left and right’: the race to save US government datasets before they’re deleted
Summary
During President Donald Trump’s term in 2025, a group called the Data Rescue Project worked to save important government data before it was deleted. Volunteers downloaded and archived thousands of government datasets, especially those related to climate change, health, and social issues, to keep them accessible to the public.Key Facts
- The Trump administration removed or changed thousands of government webpages and datasets related to topics like climate change, reproductive health, and LGBTQ issues.
- André, a programmer, and other volunteers worked around the clock to download government data before it disappeared.
- The Data Rescue Project is a volunteer network of over 800 people including librarians, academics, programmers, and retirees.
- The group believes public government data should be treated like public infrastructure, such as roads and bridges.
- Volunteers archive data on a public website called DataLumos hosted by the University of Michigan.
- They add metadata, or descriptions, to help people understand the datasets they save.
- The group shifted from just saving data quickly to focusing on long-term preservation and accessibility.
- There are at least 500,000 federal datasets on Data.gov, but the group acknowledges it is impossible to save all of them.
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