Internet Archive: About IA Skip to main content See what's new with book lending at the Internet Archive A line drawing of the Internet Archive headquarters building façade. An illustration of a magnifying glass. An illustration of a magnifying glass. An illustration of a horizontal line over an up pointing arrow. Upload An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up | Log in An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine An illustration of an open book. Books An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio An illustration of a 3.5" floppy disk. Software An illustration of two photographs. Images An illustration of a heart shape Donate An illustration of text ellipses. More An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. About Blog Projects Help Donate An illustration of a heart shape Contact Jobs Volunteer People Search Metadata Search text contents Search TV news captions Search archived websites Advanced Search Sign up for free Log in Read More Server Statistics Archive Statistics Job Opportunities at the Internet Archive Events News [more] Hooniverse: Wayback Machine Allows a Peek into Defunct Detroit Automaker Websites Laughing Squid: An Amazing Collection of Pulp Magazines Going Back 75 Years Is Available Online at The Internet Archive Far Out Magazine: Over 100,000 historic vinyl records are being digitised and made available to stream online for free GigaZine: ウェブ上の情報を記録・保存する「インターネット・アーカイブ」の存続をひっそりと脅かしているものとは？ ActuaLitte: Plongez dans l'art japonais de la fin du XIXe siècle grâce à ce magazine numérisé Library Journal: Better World Libraries, Internet Archive Partner, Acquires Better World Books Open Culture: The Internet Archive Is Digitizing & Preserving Over 100,000 Vinyl Records: Hear 750 Full Albums Now Against The Grain: ATG Newsflash: For the Love of Literacy–Better World Books and the Internet Archive Unite to Preserve Millions of Books Research Information: Better World Books affiliates with Internet Archive Wired: The Internet Archive Is Making Wikipedia More Reliable About the Internet Archive The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge. We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 25+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 750+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages. As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains: 475 billion web pages 28 million books and texts 14 million audio recordings (including 220,000 live concerts) 6 million videos (including 2 million Television News programs) 3.5 million images 580,000 software programs Anyone with a free account can upload media to the Internet Archive. We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into special collections. Because we are a library, we pay special attention to books. Not everyone has access to a public or academic library with a good collection, so to provide universal access we need to provide digital versions of books. We began a program to digitize books in 2005 and today we scan 3,500 books per day in 18 locations around the world. Books published prior to 1926 are available for download, and hundreds of thousands of modern books can be borrowed through our Open Library site. Some of our digitized books are only available to people with print disabilities. Like the Internet, television is also an ephemeral medium. We began archiving television programs in late 2000, and our first public TV project was an archive of TV news surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. In 2009 we began to make selected U.S. television news broadcasts searchable by captions in our TV News Archive. This service allows researchers and the public to use television as a citable and sharable reference. The Internet Archive serves millions of people each day and is one of the top 300 web sites in the world. A single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 70+ Petabytes of server space (and we store at least 2 copies of everything). We are funded through donations, grants, and by providing web archiving and book digitization services for our partners. As with most libraries we value the privacy of our patrons, so we avoid keeping the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of our readers and offer our site in https (secure) protocol. You can find information about our projects on our blog (including important announcements), contact us, buy swag in our store, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Welcome to the library! Recent foundation funding generously provided by:: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Council on Library and Information Resources Democracy Fund Federal Communications Commission Universal Service Program for Schools and Libraries (E-Rate) Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Knight Foundation Laura and John Arnold Foundation National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Digital Humanities National Science Foundation The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation The Philadelphia Foundation Rita Allen Foundation The Internet Archive is a member of: American Library Association (ALA) Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) Boston Library Consortium (BLC) Califa Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Digital Library Federation (DLF) Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Music Library Association National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) ReShare