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Maintaining a Deleted Data LibGuide Box: A Lightweight Contribution to the Data Deletion Fight Tina Griffin, MLIS University of Illinois Chicago MDLS 2025 1
Data/Information Access •Public access to reliable health information is critical to prevent public health disasters and maintain a healthy population. •Health science librarians connect the public to health information and data through LibGuides, outreach events, webinars, and more. 2
Presidential Transitions •Every Administration has its own priorities and pages/data change. •However, the election of DJT (47) (based on his previous tenure (45), and the Project 2025 document predicted an administration that was going to be hostile to data on a variety of health-related topics. 3
Deletion Blitz •At the start of 2025 came a blitz of changed government pages core to health science librarianship. (CDC, Medline Plus, FDA, etc.) •Court orders over the past several months restored some pages but with “modified” content and disclaimers. •Keeping up with changes and differences took a cooperative effort over institutions and ad hoc groups. 4
Capacity •My personal and professional capacity was minimal. •I desperately wanted to contribute but had no space for building a Guide, workshop, etc. •What I could do: create LibGuide Box to connect to alternate data sources. 5
Data Box •Collected info from previous data rescue projects, articles from newspapers and blog posts, other LibGuides. •Started as link list, eventually organized by theme as more data became available. • Was updating weekly, now quarterly. https://researchguides.uic.edu/pharmacy/databases 6
Outcomes •Data box has been reused by other HSL •Contributed to conversations among all our librarians about data stability, instruction approaches, and data within information literacy. •Opportunity to talk to Medicine Clerkship directors about the ongoing issue 7
Summary • Don’t feel obligated to make everything a grand project, that approach devalues the small work that can be done now. • Yes, it’s tempting to work beyond your capacity, but then what happens later? 8
Questions 9
