NASA is preparing to close its largest research library this week, a move that has stirred deep concern among scientists, engineers, labor unions, and elected officials who warn that the decision could permanently erase decades of scientific history.
The library, housed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is scheduled to shut its doors on Friday. Inside are tens of thousands of books, journals, and technical documents that have supported space missions for generations. Many of these materials exist only in physical form and have never been digitized, making their potential loss especially troubling to researchers.
NASA officials say the closure is part of a broader facilities reorganization and cost-saving effort. Over the next 60 days, the library’s holdings will be reviewed, with some items moved into off-site government storage and others discarded.
“This process is an established method that is used by federal agencies to properly dispose of federally owned property,” said Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman.
Library Shutdown Tied to Wider Campus Changes
The decision to close the Goddard library is part of a sweeping consolidation plan for the research center, one of NASA’s most significant scientific hubs. Under the plan, 13 buildings and more than 100 laboratories across the 1,270-acre campus are slated for closure by March 2026.
NASA officials emphasize that the move is not intended to diminish Goddard’s role in space exploration. Bethany Stevens, a NASA spokeswoman, said the changes stem from a long-term facilities strategy that began before the Trump administration took office.
“This is a consolidation not a closure,” Ms. Stevens said, noting that many of the buildings being shuttered are aging or no longer safe. NASA estimates the effort will save approximately $10 million annually while avoiding nearly $64 million in deferred maintenance costs.
Goddard is widely considered the backbone of NASA’s scientific operations. Its workforce designs and builds spacecraft and instruments used to study Earth’s climate, solar activity, distant planets, and the broader universe.
Workforce Cuts Deepen Unease
The library’s closure comes amid significant reductions in staffing at Goddard. Earlier this year, a combination of budget cuts, buyouts, and early retirement programs linked to the administration’s cost-cutting initiatives reduced the center’s workforce to roughly 6,600 employees and contractors, down from more than 10,000.
The Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association, which represents many workers at the center, says the speed of the closures has created chaos. In a statement posted on its website, the union reported that specialized testing equipment and electronics designed for spacecraft development have already been removed and discarded.
Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers from Maryland argue that the administration rushed the closures during a recent federal shutdown, when many employees were not on campus. They also say there are no clear plans to replace the closed facilities with new ones, raising concerns about the long-term future of the center.
A Shrinking Network of NASA Libraries
The Goddard library closure is part of a nationwide contraction of NASA’s physical research libraries. Since 2022, seven NASA libraries have shut down, including three this year alone. Once the Goddard facility closes, only three NASA libraries will remain open — at the Glenn Research Center in Ohio, the Ames Research Center in California, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
NASA says employees will still be able to access research support through digital services. Mr. Richmond said staff can use an online “Ask a Librarian” feature or request books through inter-library loan programs with other federal agencies.
Many researchers, however, say these alternatives fall short, particularly when it comes to rare or highly specialized materials that are not available digitally.
Scientists Warn of Losing Hard-Won Knowledge
Dave Williams, a planetary scientist who retired early from Goddard this year, said the library was a vital tool for engineers planning missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The facility was also open to outside researchers, making it a rare public repository of spaceflight history.
The collection includes Soviet-era rocket science texts from the Cold War, detailed documentation of Apollo-era experiments, and obscure technical journals that help scientists interpret data from older missions.
For more than three decades, Dr. Williams curated information housed at the library, much of which he uploaded to NASA’s online archives. Even so, he said vast amounts of material remain inaccessible online.
“You can’t just get these things online,” said Dr. Williams, the former director of NASA’s Space Science Data Coordinated Archive.
Older documents were never digitized, he explained, while many modern scientific journals are locked behind expensive digital paywalls, making access difficult without institutional library subscriptions.
More Than a Library, a Place to Think
Beyond its shelves, the Goddard library served as a quiet refuge for scientists seeking focus and inspiration. Santiago Gassó, an atmospheric scientist, said the physical space played a key role in his work.
“I get very creative when I go there,” Dr. Gassó said. “There’s nothing like going to the bookshelf, picking out a book, and then seeing the one next to it. You start to browse.”
The library is located in Building 21, which also contains offices and a cafeteria. Its permanent closure means employees are also losing a central gathering space where informal conversations often sparked collaboration across disciplines.
Fears for NASA’s Institutional Memory
The Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, which preserves mission data and historical records, has already been offline for months. Scientists say that losing both the archive and the library could weaken NASA’s ability to learn from past successes and failures.
“It’s not like we’re so much smarter now than we were in the past,” Dr. Williams said. “It’s the same people, and they make the same kind of human errors. If you lose that history, you are going to make the same mistakes again.”
The union representing Goddard workers has also said that researchers are struggling to access online journals they rely on for daily work.
