This page contains a partial list of workarounds you might try. Links to subscription databases on this guide require a Rice ID for access.
For help with government-related research, please
Check also Fondren's collection of LibGuides which recommend databases for specific subjects, and its list of subject librarians for help in specific research areas.
For paper documents get help at the Government Information Desk in the basement of Fondren and/or check:
Free resources:
Subscription databases:
If there is no access to the online version, you can use the subscription ERIC databases as an index to find an ED number and check in the Kelley Center to see if we own that report on microfiche.
Census Reporter – is a free, open-source platform focused on making American Community Survey (ACS) data more accessible, including the recent upload of the 2022 1-Year ACS data
End of Term Crawl - The main coordinated effort to archive websites, but datasets have been more of a challenge.
EDGI - They have been focused on environmental data.
FRED - They have some demographic data as well
Esri – for mapping users, the GIS vendor publishes a number of U.S. Census Bureau data sets, including the ACS, through its ArcGIS Online Platform
PolicyMap – offers a free tier that can be used to view basic information down to the tract-level, but more detailed data and functionality requires a subscription
A project out of Harvard’s LIbrary Innovation Lab Team - They have been focusing on data.gov and should release data soon.
ICPSR Data Lumos - They have the older version of a lot of major data, including some from the CDC.
Data Liberation Project run by BigLocalNews and MuckRock, which are good groups to follow.
There was a special archive created on IA of all CDC datasets publicly available as of January 28, 2025
Datasets in Dataverse - Includes CDC's Social Vulnerability Index data. Most of what's being placed here is data focusing on health and the environment.
Silencing Science Tracker - joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. It tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information.
Safeguarding Research - Looks like a newer effort. Unclear where they are at this point. Can add more info if anyone knows about this.
OSF as option for pre-prints of articles (or your university’s IR)
Data Hoarder - is coordinating community efforts to rescue data
ArchiveTeam Warriors - They run a distributed crawler; data is uploaded to Archive.org by volunteers
WebRecorder.net has archived 8TB+ of government sites, some from the End-of-Term-Archive seed list, some from EDGI Slack requests, and many sites independently
ArchiveBox.io has also archived government datasets from data.gov, CIBP, USCIS, NOAA, NASA, NSIDC, and more
The Original DataRescue Workflow - For reference. Many of the tools are no longer working but the workflow could be useful.
Why EDGI is Archiving Public Environmental Data, blog post from EDGI
Preserving federal health data by The Journalist's Resource out of the Harvard Kennedy School
404 media article citing EDGI, EOT, James Jacobs
This January 31, 2025 newsletter, Garbage Day, mentions some coordinating efforts by Health Professionals and Journalists to gather the CDC data
Lending a hand with EOT Crawl from the PEGI Project.
Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday” by Ethan Singer.
The Government Information Crisis Is Bigger Than You Think It Is blog post by Free Government Information
CDC removes gender, equity references in public health material from WaPo
BREAKING NEWS: CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals from Inside Medicine
In the event of another shutdown, the links in this box to news sources and agency contingency plans will be updated.
If you wish to let Congress know how the shutdown is affecting your research and productivity, check the Congressional Directory for Congressional members' contact information.
In Texas use Who Represents Me to identify and find contact information for U.S. Congress members from your district as well for the two Texas Senators.