Over the summer of 2026, the US National Institutes of Health announced that it is revising Web resources “to create a clearer, easier-to-use digital experience for the public and improve how content is managed across the agency.” Usually in revisions of Web sites, older materials are moved from one uniform resource location to another, and Web developers take pains to create paths or links so that the legacy materials can be readily found.1 Sometimes, however, legacy documents are simply pruned from the document tree and they disappear from the Web.
I am not certain that the NIH modernization will cause loss of access to any specific documents, but I can think of some resources that readers of Special Education Today might be saddened if they disappeared. I’m thinking of the materials developed and published as a result of the work of the National Reading Panel, but there are also others.
In answer to an inquiry from Special Education Today, Peggy McCardle2 explained that the NIH Web changes are likely to make some of those documents (including the NRP report, itself) no longer accessible on the government Web site. She encouraged people to download copies while they are still accessible. “I hope teachers, coaches, administrators, and other educators will learn about the coming changes,” Peggy McCardle told SET. “They should know that they can download the documents, which are in the public domain, and put them on their organizations’ Web sites for public use.”
Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (the summary);
Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (this is the fuller document and there is a link to a PDF on this page);
Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (this is the “teacher’s guide” and this is a link to a PDF on this page)’
The results page for a search of the USA.gov pages for “national reading panel”
In addition to the materials related to the NRP, the NICHD published other valuable work. For example, some work focused on learning disabilities, autism, intellectual disabilities and other areas (links are to search results pages). Readers of SET may wan to scour sites for materials on those topics. I’m not saying that they are all going to disappear, but….
There are not copyright issues with readers downloading relevant materials. The NRP reports, for example, were created and disseminated as public documents. Indeed, non-profit organizations in particular may want to secure copies for their own repositories that their members’ can use.
Footnote
Conceptually, the Web developer creates files that are similar to “aliases” (Apple) or “shortcuts” (Windows, although it may use “alias” these days, too). In Apache, the Web serving software for the unix operating system that underlies many Web sites, the developer might create a “RedirectMatch” table or map correlating the original location with the new location of files, directories (“folders), and such. Using “mod_rewrite,” the developer could then interpret in-coming requests for materials at their legacy URL and serve the requester the materials from their new URL
Readers will likely remember that Peggy McCardle, Ph.D., was Branch Chief at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Although I believe she consults with research groups these days, she has retired and was not speaking with SET in an official capacity.
These redirects through Apache, hmmm?
[I had always wondered how sites found their "new" homes and their pages].