Knowledge and culture retained for all by the Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Joy Chesbrough introduces us to the Internet Archive’s mission and accomplishments before examining how this public-good service is funded and operated. Joy, who leads the organization’s philanthropy efforts, explained that the Internet Archive was founded by technologist Brewster Kahle nearly 30 years ago as a non-profit to ensure knowledge remained open, free, and accessible to everyone, using an open-source platform. As a global public service, it is one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, attracting 2.2 million daily users who access a vast array of content from books and magazines to historical tech manuals.

A cornerstone of the Internet Archive’s work is the Wayback Machine, lauded as a “time machine for the web” that prevents digital content from disappearing. This tool has been critical for journalists, capturing government websites during presidential transitions (e.g., end-of-term crawls), and preserving cultural heritage during crises, such as the Ukraine war, and digitizing Aruba’s culture. Beyond the Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive’s mission is to provide universal access to all knowledge, much like a modern Library of Alexandria. It houses an astounding 250 petabytes of data, 113 million public media items, and over one trillion web pages, making it ten times larger than the U.S. Library of Congress. Other vital projects include “Archive-It” for institutional digital preservation, “Democracy’s Library” for archiving government documents globally, “Community Webs” to ensure marginalized voices are historically recorded, and “Open Library,” which provides millions of accessible books, working to overcome the statistic that only 7% of published works are in accessible formats. They also combat website “link rot” through partnerships with platforms like Wikipedia and WordPress, ensuring enduring access to linked content.

The Internet Archive operates as a purpose-driven, independent non-profit, committed to privacy by not tracking users, displaying ads, or monetizing its content. Its $30 million annual operating budget, while a small fraction of the U.S. nonprofit sector’s over $592 billion, is used efficiently without extensive marketing, as its brand recognition often stems from the Wayback Machine. Joy’s philanthropy team has significantly expanded its donor base, attracting nearly 250,000 unique individual donors over the past year. Supporters are deeply loyal, with an average donation higher than most nonprofits, reflecting the perceived value of the Internet Archive in providing a stable foundation for truth and combating misinformation and vanishing culture in an increasingly digital and volatile world. The organization is dedicated to ensuring this invaluable library endures for future generations, preserving the world’s culture and history into perpetuity.