(Credit: Internet Archive)
The Internet Archive is now a federal depository library, meaning it can provide free access to bills, laws, regulations, presidential documents, studies, and other documents.
The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), run by the US Government Publishing Office (GPO), was established in 1813 to open up free access to official federal documents. Currently, there are 1,150 FDLs across all 50 states; all of them, except a few, are physical libraries.
According to San Francisco's KQED, the GPO has been pushing for digital preservation since 2016 and intensified its efforts recently. To add new entrants to the FDLP program, members of Congress are allowed to designate up to two qualified libraries. For the Internet Archive, the designation came from California Senator Alex Padilla.
"The Internet Archive will help remove barriers so that communities from across the nation and around the world can access federal government publications online," Padilla wrote to the GPO. "As technology continues to evolve, the Internet Archive is leading the way when it comes to providing online library services and would be an asset to the Federal Depository Library Program."
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit, and joining the Federal Depository Library Program is part of its mission to keep knowledge accessible, founder Brewster Kahle tells KQED.
" 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."
The Internet Archive has encountered trouble recently. Last October, the platform was targeted by DDoS attacks and was offline for several days. A month before that, a federal appeals court blocked its ability to loan scanned copies of printed books.
The platform is now inching toward a major milestone. "Toward the fantasticness and vastness of what's going on online, in October, the Internet Archive will hit a milestone of 1 trillion pages. And that 1 trillion is not just a testament to what libraries are able to do, but actually the sharing that people and governments have to try and create an educated populace," Kahle said.