When the government shutdown began, ASU librarians did not expect to see it affect the research students and faculty were doing.
The shutdown has caused 17 government-run databases and websites to be unavailable, made 13 others partially unavailable and stopped the release of several important reports, ASU librarian Dan Stanton said.
Stanton said these websites "kind of have a closed sign on it right now," but librarians are finding different avenues to find information, because reports are republished on many different sites.
"One of the beauties of government information is it's free," Stanton said. "When that information gets published, other people, commercial publishers or other organizations can grab the information and put it out themselves."
The ASU libraries have been working to develop a comprehensive list of affected websites and databases that can be used to work around the issues, which they have shared among themselves to make the transition as easy as possible, Stanton said.
Databases to which ASU subscribes have the information one might typically get from a government-run website; it just may require a different website to find the information, Stanton said.
"Go about your research as you normally would," Stanton said. "You probably won't notice a difference, and if you do, you have your subject librarians to help you."
Research at the University is also being affected, because new reports, such as employment and job statistics, are being held back while the government is shutdown, Stanton said.
Some researchers rely on this information for their work.
"Everybody is kind of in the same boat," Stanton said. "There may be data in the pipelines to be released, but they don't get released, because there is no one there to process it."
Lee McPheters, a W. P. Carey School of Business research professor, runs a website that many business people use for information on the economy.
The website, Job Growth USA, is used by economic development offices, media representatives and business people for information on how cities and states are doing economically, McPheters said.
Without the September job growth statistics that were supposed to be released on Oct. 4, McPheters said he has been unable to give viewers the most recent information.
The website is used to make comparisons between different cities or years and was even used by fact checkers during the 2012 elections, but without the most recent data, these comparisons cannot be made.
"We are in 'wait and see' mode, hoping that the September data will be published as normal," McPheters said in an email. "But if the shutdown continues, we cannot update our Job Growth website, and it is a quite popular information source."
There is way to get around the problem, and he just hopes that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the data as planned on Oct. 18, he said.
ASU Librarian Lydia LaFaro said there have been some issues with students and faculty finding the information they need, but so far, they have been able to find other sites that have the information.
"We'll hear from a library user, as a student or faculty, that they are going to some government website where they usually get their information, either because they usually go there or it has been one of our library guides that recommends it, and they can't get in," LaFaro said.
The librarians have been working together to share workarounds or help find solutions when the issues arise, LaFaro said.
"It's pretty case by case," LaFaro said. "If the general solutions don't work out, where can it be?"
Typically, they can find the information in another database or by using the Wayback Machine, which archives the Internet every so often and can take users to an older version of links that are no longer working.
Lafaro said she and the other librarians did not expect the websites to be shut down, since servers typically run themselves.
However, she said she thinks they most likely decided to shut them down instead of needing someone to watch the servers in case a problem developed.
"I don't know if that would have been my choice, but that was their choice," LaFaro said.
Reach the reporter at sgslade@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @shelbygslade
