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Fighting the 404: Where to Look When Information Has Been Deleted

What’s in This Guide?

This guide contains alternatives to federally funded databases, information on where to look when you've encountered a broken link, and other resources.

ERIC

What You Should Know

  • ERIC is a vital education database that also provides a vast selection of gray literature (materials such as conference abstracts, white papers, reports, working papers, etc.).
  • The Department of Education will be drastically reducing ERIC's content (by around 45%) starting April 24, 2025. In order to achieve this, the DOE will deselect journals from ERIC's indexing, which means their content will be removed from the database.
  • The DOE has not released the list of deselected journals nor have they notified every journal due to workforce reductions. However, a librarian has been tracking them in a continually updated list. 

Where Else Can I Search?

What Other Options Are There?

The following databases require a subscription:

Further Reading

PubMed

What You Should Know

Where Can I Search Instead?

Where Do I Go if PubMed Is Down?

PubMed searches a collection of papers called Medline, maintained by the National Library of Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Medline is searchable through other platforms, so if the PubMed website is down, you can also use:

ClinicalTrials.gov

What You Should Know

Where Can I Search Instead?

Or, search in a specific country's registry: