Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Federal Shutdown Interfering With Your Research? Try This.

If you've tried to access Federal government websites in the past week you know they don't work because of the shutdown. This is not a political forum  - it's all about research, and thanks to the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" a bunch of agencies' websites are still available to facilitate researching.

Start by going here: http://blog.archive.org/2013/10/02/governmentblackout/

That brings up the "Blacked Out Government Websites Available Through Wayback Machine."


There are a total of  13 agencies whose websites you can access:  NOAA, NPS, LOC, NSH, FCC, Census, USDA, USGS, ITC, FTC, NASA, ITA, and Corp for National Service. Just click on the links below the logos.

I checked out the LOC site and was able to go into digitized Historic Newspapers and do full searches of dates in the late 19th Century. That's pretty far into the site, so there must be all sorts of stuff (maybe everything?) available.

So, YAY! for the Internet Archive. These good folks are always looking for additional funding. If you use the Blacked Out sites, please make a contribution. I know I will.

If this post was helpful or interesting to you, please let me know. I’m always looking for ways to improve the blog. 

Disclaimer: The description of web pages are accurate as of the date of the post. Like everything else in this digital world of ours, they can change in the blink of an eye.