Librarians, ‘hactivists’ gather at Rice to secure federal data
Many believe information is at risk because administration downplays it
As a scientist who studies the chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans, Laurence Yeung depends on the stockpiles of data generated by the federal government, particularly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Among other tasks, the agency deploys satellites that consistently scan the globe to record shifts in sea surface temperatures, brewing storms and even changes in sea ice conditions.
“These satellite analyses really paint a pretty decent picture of the ocean and are in constant communication with various data centers,” said Yeung, an assistant professor of Earth Science at Rice University. “We literally need all of that data.”
On Saturday, about 100 librarians, academics, coders and socially minded “hactivists” showed up at Rice’s Fondren Library in an effort to protect the federal data that Yeung and other scientists rely on to do their jobs.
Many of them believe that data is threatened because some members of President Donald Trump’s administration have downplayed the significance of climate change and have expressed skepticism that human activity plays a major role. Heightening those fears is the fact that some scientific data has become harder to find on certain federal websites while other information has temporarily disappeared. In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture scrubbed animal welfare data, but so far that appears to the be the only verified case of information that vanished for good.
“Librarians like to say, lots of copies make stuff safe,” said Lisa Spiro, Fondren Library’s director of digital scholarship services and one of the event organizers. “We want to make sure that everyone has
continued access to federal data.”
Since January, these guerrilla archiving events have popped up around the country to scrape federal agency websites, to upload data sets and documents to safe repositories, and to tell the public about the information. On Saturday, there were similar events at Yale, Miami University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ‘Crawlable’ data
The events are organized by the Libraries Network, the Data Refuge Project and the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative.
The push to save federal data is just one example of scientists becoming more politically active since Trump’s election last year. Many plan to participate in marches around the world on April 22. An event in Houston will feature several prominent local scientists.
Still, the Saturday event wasn’t overtly political.
Kathy Weimer, head of the Kelly Center for Government Information, Data and Geospatial Services at Fondren Library, said that while recent political maneuvering has heightened the sense of urgency, protecting federal data is a natural extension of the mission of libraries around the country.
Each data rescue event focuses on a different federal government website. The Rice event was aimed at surveying data from the Federal Election Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation and the Office of Water.
Participants were di- vided into five groups. One worked on data that was “crawlable,” meaning it was easy to download and store. Another worked on the more difficult task of rescuing “uncrawlable” data that required coding and serious technical skills. ‘Valuable’ resources
Carrie Masiello, a professor of Earth Science at Rice, was tasked with reviewing and preserving EPA data that related to removing arsenic from drinking water. Her takeaway?
“The EPA’s resources are really valuable,” she said. “I was really impressed with the breadth of EPA resources to help people deal with contaminants in their water: information about what you should and shouldn’t worry about, information about what the possible solutions are, and information about how to implement solutions costeffectively.”
Jeff Reichman volunteered for the “storytellers” group, which was tasked with finding ways to interpret the rescued data, whether through text, maps or graphics.
“This is what I love to do,” said Reichman, founder of January Advisors, a Houston-based technology design, development and consulting firm. “I’m sharpening my skills here. I would be doing something like this anyway if I weren’t here.”