All,

I know this is for a more general librarian audience.

I am trying to put together a libguide that will give advice to researchers here on campus.  I am struggling with how to tell them to copy any federal government data on the web that might be important to their research.  I am trying not to sound too alarmist, but daily reports tell us about federal data sites that have been trimmed or taken down entirely.

I was spurred on by a visit from a former student worker of mine.  I told her to copy the data she needed from the USGS site.  She wondered why anyone would want to shut down something about seismic activity.  Oklahoma comes to mind.

I need to put something together that is pretty neutral.  There are libguides out there regarding backing up your data, but this topic is a little different.

Any advice you can give me would be much appreciated.

Christopher J.J. Thiry
Outreach, Instruction, and Geospatial Information Librarian
Colorado School of Mines
1400 Illinois
Golden, CO 80401
p. 303-273-3697
f. 303-273-3199
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
http://library.mines.edu/