Research Data Services

The RDS team is tracking developments in the availability of federal datasets that are often used by researchers around the world. While we are not engaged in data rescue efforts, this page collates available resources for researchers that are looking for alternative sources of data. A wide range of groups are working on these efforts, and their listing is not an express endorsement by the RDS team, UT Libraries, or the University of Texas at Austin. There is a relatively central group that tracks and helps coordinate data rescue efforts, the Data Rescue Project.

• End of Term Web Archive: A long-term effort to archive webpages of each U.S. administration during the presidential transition, dating back to 2008; partners include the Internet Archive and several universities and non-profits. Note that the National Archives and Records Administration preserves White House pages. 
• Source Cooperative Archive of data.gov: An effort by the Harvard Law School Library to continually mirror data.gov
• CDC website archive: An independent effort to reconstruct a functional version of the CDC website from prior to the inauguration. Note that this site will not be accessible on campus Wi-Fi.

Multi-dataset platforms

These are data archives that may contain a wide-ranging mix of datasets.

• American Statistical Association: This is a professional association that is monitoring developments in federal statistical agencies (e.g., Census Bureau).
• DataLumos: This is a project of ICPSR, the largest data archive for social science datasets, which is maintained at the University of Michigan. Users can find data, suggest data for archiving, or upload data themselves.
• EDGI: This is a community network that focuses on environmental data, which recently relaunched their Federal Environmental Web Tracker for federal datasets.
• IPUMS: This is an independent database of government-collected data, primarily census and survey data.
• Public Environmental Data Project (PEDP): This is a community network that focuses on environmental data and tools to support critical research, advocacy, policy, and litigation work.
• Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center (CAFE): This is an assorted set of federal datasets (mainly related to climate and health) and includes both recent and older records. It is hosted in Harvard's institutional repository.
• UCSB archive: This is a locally hosted Git server that hosts public data mainly from the CDC, NIH, and NOAA.
• National Bureau of Economic Research's (NBER's) Public Use Data Archive: This is as mix of economic, demographic, and enterprise data obtained over the years for NBER-affiliated researchers. Includes historical Current Population Survey, Development of the American Economy, Economics of Aging, Economics of Health, Union Army data, and much more.

Specific datasets

• Static archive of CDC datasets: This is a ~100 GB deposit on the Internet Archive that contains all public, non-corrupted CDC datasets available as of January 28, 2025.
• Census Reporter: This is an independent interface for exploring the most recent census data.