I would like to...
(Click on entry to expand)
Preserve publicly-available data I am using for my research
- The Checklist for USA federal data backups from MIT is an excellent starting point if you believe that the data you are working with is at risk of being lost. You can also reach out to data@library.columbia.edu for a research data consultation related to a specific dataset.
Learn more about what is being done to preserve data on a larger scale
- The Data Rescue Project (DRP) is a growing resource for learning about different data rescue projects for public government data and is the result of coordination among data organizations including IASSIST and RDAP. Their amazing Data Rescue Tracker provides information on specific government datasets, including the responsible federal agency, original URL, rescue status, and the filetype, maintaining organization, and download location of the rescued data.
- The DRP Web site includes a page that lists a number of academic library guides on how to find and preserve government data. The University of Minnesota Libraries guide includes links to a number of projects attempting to track changes to the availability of government information, including the Columbia Law School and Columbia Climate School projects Silencing Science Tracker and Climate Deregulation Tracker.
- Since 2008, the Internet Archive (IA) has worked with partner organizations to create an End of Term Web Archive by crawling federal government websites–including some datasets–in the .gov, .mil, and other domains. The archives are created at the end of each presidential administration. You can search the 2024 End of Term Web Archive in IA’s Wayback Machine.
- To stay informed about these efforts and to get involved, you can sign up for the Data Rescue Project email list. (source)
Preserve my own research data
- For researchers who need to preserve data that they have created or gathered - including for projects that have been grant funded - Research Data at Columbia is an excellent starting point.
- Academic Commons is an appropriate platform for public data sets that are 10GB or smaller. Data Dryad, which the Libraries subscribes to, is appropriate for public data sets that are 300GB or smaller. For questions related to Academic Commons, please contact ac@columbia.edu.
Learn more about resources that are available to me at Columbia University
- The Climate Deregulation Tracker identified steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The tracker is linked to a database of climate change regulations and two other climate regulation trackers: the Climate Reregulation Tracker covering the Biden administration and the Climate Backtracker covering the second Trump administration. Read more about the tracker and climate deregulation news. Please contact Martin Lockman (m.lockman@columbia.edu) with questions or corrections.
- The Silencing Science Tracker is a 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, since the November 2016 election. Read more about the tracker and related resources. Please contact Olivia Guarna (ong2107@columbia.edu) or Dana Willbanks (dwillbanks@csldf.org) to recommend relevant media reports or provide responses or corrections to media reports.
Statement for reaching out
- We realize that federal data access plays a fundamental role in advancing research at Columbia University. To contribute to an active project or find collaborators for a new project, visit the Data Rescue Efforts page from the Data Rescue Project, or read their FAQ.
We encourage researchers to contact data@library.columbia.edu for advice on appropriate data sources or are unable to access the data needed for research and/or teaching. Columbia Libraries is focused on the preservation of research data created by the Columbia community.
