Worried that you might run out of reading material while you’re sheltering in place? The Internet Archive will make sure that never happens.
The nonprofit group announced this week that it has created the National Emergency Library, composed of more than 1.4 million books. The organization is suspending waitlists for the books it has in its collection, making reading material available for students and anyone else who wants to keep themselves occupied.
“The library system, because of our national emergency, is coming to aid those that are forced to learn at home,” said Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive’s digital librarian, in a statement. “This was our dream for the original Internet coming to life: the Library at everyone’s fingertips.”
At the New Yorker, Jill Lepore noted “the sheer pleasure of browsing through the titles,” pointing out titles like How To Succeed in Singing and Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose.
The Internet Archive asked that readers who are able to buy books do that instead of borrowing from the virtual library.
“We encourage all readers who are in a position to buy books to do so, ideally while also supporting your local bookstore,” the organization said. “We hope that authors will support our effort to ensure temporary access to their work in this time of crisis.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
