DataStore Data Trail: September 2025

Who doesn’t love a baby hobbit? Young Purple Gallinules hike along a Spatterdock (Cow Lily) path in Everglades National Park.

Photo: Katie Herrmann/SFCN

Welcome to the DataStore Data Trail!

—The official newsletter of the National Park Service DataStore science repository. Our goal is to deliver science and information - with a side of scenery - directly to your inbox. Our audience is anyone that uses DataStore, and our focus is on upcoming changes to DataStore, report and dataset highlights, and tips and tricks for navigating DataStore. If you’d like to get involved as a beta tester, submit a photo or content for inclusion in the Data Trail, or have feedback, questions, or suggestions, please reach out to the DataStore Team.

Iceberg Lake Trail lined with Bear grass, Glacier National Park.

NPS Photo/David Restivo

From the Ridge Line

Hello DataStore friends! As we reach the end of summer, I find myself reflecting on all the miles traveled—on real trails, as well as those covered by the dedicated DataStore team. Last fall the NPS Public Access Plan named DataStore as the designated repository for scientific information products, including data, from NPS studies. It’s an important role to play for the agency, and we have lots of enhancements on our wish list to ensure we meet that responsibility. In December 2024 we improved the way that we track usage and we’ve logged millions of page views and downloads in just nine months. That was way above my expectation, and it’s very exciting to know that NPS reports, scripts, data, and other documents are constantly (every few seconds) being used by our digital visitors! 2026 will be another year of active development within NPS DataStore. The team is hard at work on a completely revised look and feel (DataStore 4.0) that will build off the NPS.gov theme. The IRMA Portal has already been rebranded if you want a sneak peek at what's coming! We are also working to improve our overall transparency and ensure any sensitive data is appropriately matched to a CUI category or other legal authority. The new release will also include overhauled help documentation and other refinements to ensure we maintain a high-quality science repository. Thanks to all of you for populating DataStore with amazing content, and for Wendy Thorsdatter (current DataStore Product Owner) and the entire DataStore development team for their dedication to making this a premier federal application.

- Judd Patterson, IMD National Data Scientist

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst

—Wallace Stegner

Fresh Tracks

If you haven’t visited DataStore recently, you may be missing out on new features! We’re working to improve the Program and Project reference types to simplify curation and organization of content. Project and Program references have new filters to allow grids to be refined by title, reference type, content unit, and year. These were so popular you’ll see them popping up in more places in the next release!

I&M Guidance on how to incorporate these features for network DataStore organization and curation can be found here. The I&M guidance is easily adaptable for other programs.

Around the Bend

Current DataStore development reflects best practices established in the Open Government Data Act (2018) and the National Park Service Public Access Plan. A shift toward openness means rethinking awareness of—and access to—our work. DataStore currently supports two visibility settings: one for the reference landing page, and another for file access. With the next release, all new references will be set to a ‘Public’ reference landing page, and we will work together to curate and change this setting on older references. It will still be possible to use ‘Internal’ and ‘Specific Individuals’ to control access to files where there is a legal authority for that type of restriction. DataStore will prompt for this legal authority (a drop-down list of common options is provided) and ask for a point of contact/email address to ensure we can comply with the NARA CUI bannering requirements. These changes will usher in a new era of increased transparency for National Park Service products.

Three boy scouts search off-trail for litter at Mulberry Bend Overlook

NPS/Tom Pemrick

Trail Cleanup

Managing a repository as large and complex as DataStore requires constant curation and upkeep. No one likes soda cans on the ground while they’re enjoying nature, and no one likes a dead hyperlink while looking for information. Make sure your references:

• Include a Producing Unit. Future DataStore development will lean on the use of ‘Producing Unit’ which is intended to capture the park or office most directly involved in creating the reference content.
• Are active. Draft references should be activated or removed when appropriate.
• Have the 'By or For NPS' button checked as appropriate. This indicates the content was created by or for the National Park Service and will be a required field with the next release.
• Are organized in Projects or Programs

If you need help curating your references, reach out to the DataStore team for assistance.

Trail Mix

As of September 24, 2025, DataStore had:

2,072 References with a persistent Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
2,088 unique references with ORCiDs (learn more here)
22,424 references organized in Projects
2,706 public data sets shared with Data.gov

A hiker on the Eastside Trail as it winds through miles of old-growth forest in Mount Rainier National Park (MORA)

NPS/C. Roundtree

Trail Blazing

A Forest Vegetation data package was published in April in a collaborative effort between the IMD Data Strike Team and the North Coast and Cascades Network. The data package includes forest vegetation tabular data collected during 2005–2018 in Mount Rainier National Park (MORA), North Cascades National Park (NOCA), Olympic National Park (OLYM), and Lewis and Clark National Historical Park (LEWI). Data packages are a well-documented and open way to share data, and have been a theme within the Inventory & Monitoring Division for the past several years. To learn more, check out the data publication best practice site.