The Internet Archive has been officially designated as a U.S. federal depository library, expanding public access to a vast collection of government documents.
This designation was made by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla in a letter dated July 24 to the Superintendent of Documents at the Government Publishing Office.
The decision allows the Internet Archive to provide free access to archived congressional bills, laws, regulations, presidential documents, and other U.S. government materials. It joins a network of over 1,150 federal depository libraries coordinated by the Government Publishing Office.
Senator Padilla praised the Archive’s existing efforts, stating, “Through its Democracy’s Library collection, the Internet Archive has already taken steps to provide the public with free access to government publications from around the world.” He added, “I believe that the library will be able to meet the public service goals of the Federal Depository Library Program for some time to come.”
In addition to this new role, the Internet Archive recently reached a major milestone by archiving 1 trillion web pages. Its founder, Brewster Kahle, emphasized the broader mission: “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.”
Despite its achievements, the Internet Archive has faced security challenges. Last October, a DDoS attack by a group named SN_BlackMeta took down its servers. Soon after, another hacker exploited an exposed GitLab authentication token to steal data from 31 million users. Weeks later, the Archive’s Zendesk email support platform was also breached after stolen tokens were not properly rotated
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