More than 275 volunteers from the University of Michigan and around the community converged on Shapiro Library last weekend in an emergency effort to preserve scientific data that is at risk of disappearing from government websites.
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The effort, called Ann Arbor Data Rescue, was organized by librarians and students at U-M and is part of the national Data Refuge project and the Internet Archive’s End of Term Presidential Harvest.
“The goal of this project is to raise greater awareness about the fragility of government data and to assist in its preservation on a larger scale than is currently done,” said Justin Schell, director of the Shapiro Design Lab at the U-M Library. “We’re also responding to concerns from faculty about specific kinds of important federal data that may disappear in the coming months.”
Much of the effort over the two-day event in Ann Arbor focused on preserving climate science and environmental data in response to plans by the Trump administration to “scrub” climate change references from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, and to the ongoing vulnerability of such data under an administration that denies the fact of climate change.
Noa Kasman, a graduate student in the School of Information and a member of the Society of American Archivists, echoed Schell’s desire to raise awareness about the issues, and added that there needs to be “immediate action to preserve that data.”
She also said she hoped this effort will serve as a model for future data preservation projects that empower communities.
At the U-M Library, the community data rescue event is part of a larger, long-term strategy to save federal data that has been ongoing since December, when an ad hoc group of librarians began to develop a strategy to explore the long-term preservation of vulnerable research products.
“Preserving and archiving data is core to the mission of a library,” said Dean of Libraries James Hilton. To that end, the library has been actively building its Research Data Services and preservation infrastructure, and last year launched the university’s institutional data repository, Deep Blue Data.
Jill B.
Thanks for doing this!!!
Deborah Buzzy
Thank you so much. Proud to be a U of M alumni.
Doug S.
So thankful for the people that took the time to do this. Also thankful to the University for being towards the front of this movement. Can’t believe how scary it is that this is even considered necessary. I feel like in the past stuff like this was only done during wartime.
Laurie Baefsky
It’s GREAT to see this important U-M grassroots initiative at the forefront of this critical work.
Bethany Lemm
Thank you U of M!
Kristina Owens
Is there still a need for volunteers for this effort?
Pat Smolarski
I am so appreciative of the volunteers that did this very important job of protecting this scientific data! Thank you volunteers – you are heros in the world of climate change!
Patricia Bernardi
Appreciate the University’s efforts in attempting to preserve this data given the current administration’s perceived goals.
Christine Wendt
Thank you! It is so nice to be proud of my university!
What I’m hoping desperately for: back in my day were the teach-ins, political risk and all. Would that they would come again. *So* much to do to keep the record straight! Maybe in the windup to the Science March? Please, faculty!
Jeff Shane
Hooray for data heroes!