Multiple Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) sources told the News Review that over the weekend of February 14 and 15 trucks arrived at GSFC’s library to remove materials. According to one of our sources, they believe hundreds of boxes of journals were removed from the library Saturday evening. The library is housed in Building 21, where photos taken two weeks earlier show boxed-up materials and piles of books.
The GSFC Office of Communications no longer answers the phone and has not returned voicemail messages. Routing to media inquiries through the phone directory system leads to an error message on the line. Emails also went unanswered and their news chief is currently on leave. Therefore, we’ve been unable to obtain official comment from NASA on why the materials are being removed, reportedly on a weekend.
The library at GSFC was
NASA’s largest research library (for more see our article on its closure and responses to the closure in the January 8, 2026, issue). The NASA activist group NASA Needs Help alleges
irreplaceable historical documents are being illegally purged. GSFC’s administration is claiming subject matter experts were consulted to determine which materials to keep, says a News Review source at GSFC, but the source alleges the librarians have not been able to consult anyone. A second source said their request that subject matter experts be consulted for materials in their area was denied. That source said librarians themselves were tasked with preserving approximately 10 percent of the collection.
The site NASA Watch also reports that trucks were scheduled to begin removing boxes from Goddard over the weekend and was also unable to get official comment on the latest developments with the library. However, NASA Watch reported a source says materials are being moved to the library at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Ohio. A News Review source at Goddard said that any materials relocated to GRC would be a very small percentage of what NASA’s largest library once held, noting the GRC library is not very large.
Democrats in Congress have criticized cuts at NASA and building closures at Goddard, in particular, as following a White House budget proposal that faced bipartisan opposition in Congress. NASA leaders have denied this, saying they are following long-planned reductions that are part of a 20-year masterplan now being implemented on an accelerated schedule over months instead of years (see the November 6, 2025, issue). The library is not mentioned in that masterplan, nor is it housed in one of the buildings slated for closure. Under a union agreement, NASA was required to maintain the library at GSFC (see the January 8, 2026, issue) but recognition of the union was revoked through an executive order (EO 14343) by President Trump in August 2025 and its status is currently the subject of a legal dispute.
