LibGuides: Government Resources: Alternative Data Sources

Alternative Sources for U.S. Government Data

The 2025 transition between presidential administrations has been a rapidly changing landscape, widely discussed across the news media.

This section points to resources and news about accessing federal government information, and the Trump administration's and/or Congress's actions that scale back or eliminate access to federal websites, information, and datasets. It also provides links to groups performing data and website rescue and archiving.

Information has been gathered from academic research guides, organizations' public websites, and government information listservs.

Research Guides and Trackers from America's Universities

U.S. Government Information: Weekly Roundup
This page is an attempt to provide current awareness of federal government reports and activities. The page will be updated weekly to provide links to important, newsworthy, or interesting material published during the previous week. The goal is to keep the links to a manageable number for readers, not to be a comprehensive listing.
Silencing Science Tracker
The Silencing Science Tracker is a joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund at Columbia University. It tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information, since the November 2016 election.
U.S. Government Information: Trump Trackers
These tools may be helpful in keeping track of the many changes being made by the Trump administration. Managed by the UCSD Library.
Government Information Data Rescue
Collection of resources that helps you find removed information from government sources. Managed by American University.
Finding Government Information
This guide will point to resources that identify and track steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or eliminate access to federal government information. It also provides links to groups performing data and website rescue. Managed by University of Minnesota
Govspeak Errors
Tracks the ongoing uncertainty of federal websites under the new administration. Frequent link checks provide a working copy of webpages that appear to be down/missing. Continually edited with a final list at the end of the month. From University of California San Diego.

Data and Website Rescue Efforts

End of Term Web Archive
The End of Term Web Archive captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations. The EOT has thus far preserved websites from administration changes in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024.
Data Rescue Project
The Data Rescue Tracker is a collaborative tool built to catalog existing public data rescue efforts so that we can coordinate better across initiatives. At this stage, you can use the tool to help reduce duplication of rescue efforts. The Data Rescue Tracker aims to provide a consolidated overview of who is backing up which dataset from which government websites.
Find Lost Data
Provide an easy way to search for datasets across various sites. We emphasize ease of use to enable equitable access to these essential data. Our search tool provides links for data that have been downloaded from federal, state, and local agencies. Run by the Boston University School of Public Health Center for Health Data Science
Wayback Machine - Internet Archives
Explore more than 928 billion web pages saved over time. Install the Official Wayback Machine Extension to easily save websites, view missing 404 Not Found pages, or read archived books and papers. Internet Archive.
GovWayBack
Access historical versions of U.S. government websites from before January 20, 2025 with a simple URL change.
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.

Existing Alternative Data Sources

IPUMS Center for Data Integration
The IPUMS Center for Data Integration provides census and survey data from around the world. Find microdata from the U.S. Decennial Census, the American Community Survey (ACS), and the Current Population Survey. As part of their standard procedures, they download and preserve original data from U.S. statistical agencies that serve as the source data for IPUMS. Since Fri., Jan. 31, 2025, several organizations (and individuals) have downloaded many other public federal datasets. There are efforts underway to catalog and make these data available.
DataLumos
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. Please consider making a monetary donation to sustain DataLumos.
PolicyMap
Web-based online data and mapping application that provides access to thousands of indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more. 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. Purged Federal Agency Data Available.

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https://policymap.wpengine.com/blog/purged-federal-agency-data-available
FRED
Federal Reserve Economic Data. A source for economic data since 1991
Census Reporter
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.