5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Internet Archive

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Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00

Written by editor

Hand-scanning, big data, and a vintage pipe organ—here are a few of the most surprising facts about your local digital library.

The Internet Archive is best known for the Wayback Machine, our collections of cultural artifacts, and our commitment to building a better web—but there's a lot going on beneath the surface! Here are a few fun facts that you might not have known about our digital library.

1. We digitize every single book by hand.
Machinery that processes books can damage or destroy them—accidentally tearing pages or intentionally removing spines to expedite the process. Because we preserve the physical copies after digitization is complete, we use human scanners instead, who treat each book gently and with care.

2. We have what is believed to be the world’s only datacenter with a fully functional pipe organ.
The Internet Archive is headquartered in a former church; when the building was renovated we chose to preserve the organ and install our server racks at the back of the chapel. 3. The Archive archives itself.
We preserve the history of archive.org the same way we preserve the history of the rest of the Internet—with the Wayback Machine! Take a trip through time to see what archive.org looked like when it deployed in January of 1997, and through all the years since.

4. Our servers host more than 70 petabytes of data.
This amount of data would be roughly equivalent to 175 years’ worth of 4K video, 105 million CD-ROMs, or a stack of books that would reach from the surface of the earth to the moon ten times over.

5. The Internet Archive is funded by patrons like you.
We’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which means that we rely on donations from individuals to survive, thrive, and grow. We don’t display ads, sell user data, or charge for access; instead we’re powered by thousands of citizens around the world who find our collections valuable and want to give back. If you would like to chip in—or if you’ve given recently—we deeply appreciate your support. Thanks for helping us provide Universal Access to All Knowledge! DONATE TO THE INTERNET ARCHIVE Review our Privacy Policy

Our mailing address is:
Internet Archive
300 Funston Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118