Internet Archive, a nonprofit library based in San Francisco, has been given federal depository status. The designation was given by California Senator Alex Padilla, in a letter sent to the Government Publishing Office.
In the letter, shared with KQED, Senator Padilla said:
“The Archive’s digital-first approach makes it the perfect fit for a modern federal depository library, expanding access to federal government publications amid an increasingly digital landscape,” Padilla said in a statement to KQED. “The Internet Archive has broken down countless barriers to accessing information, and it is my honor to provide this designation to help further their mission of providing ‘Universal Access to All Knowledge.’”
The Federal Depository Library Program is a government program, established in 1813, for the purpose of making federal government publications accessible to the public at no cost. Those publications include maps, environmental reports, health studies, congressional records, newspapers and books.
The issue is that a massive collection of books and documents takes up a lot of space. Internet Archive not only houses its own digital collection, but has been helping other libraries and academic institutions digitize their collections for years.
Internet Archive’s founder and digital librarian Brewster Kahle said:
“ I think there is a great deal of excitement to have an organization such as the Internet Archive, which has physical collections of materials, but is really known mostly for being accessible as part of the internet,” Kahle said. “And helping integrate these materials into things like Wikipedia, so that the whole internet ecosystem gets stronger as digital learners get closer access into the government materials.”
Internet Archive was started in 1996. The nonprofit runs to Wayback Machine, which allows users to view past versions of websites, and provides digital versions of other published works. The archive contains billions of web pages and millions of books, audio recordings, videos, and images.