Inside the race to archive the US government’s websites

Since January 20, the new US presidential administration has taken down thousands of government web pages related to public health, environmental justice, and scientific research. The mass takedowns stem from the new administration’s push to remove government information related to diversity and “gender ideology,” as well as scrutiny of various government agencies’ practices. But as government web pages go dark, a collection of organizations are trying to archive as much data and information as possible before it’s gone for good. The hope is to keep a record of what has been lost for scientists and historians to be able to use in the future. Data archiving is generally considered to be nonpartisan, but the recent actions of the administration have spurred some in the preservation community to stand up. One of the largest projects is the End of Term Web Archive, a nonpartisan coalition of many organizations that aims to make a copy of all government data at the end of each presidential term.