The following guest post from digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age. Read more essays online or download the full report now.
I would never have thought I would see the day when the library system itself is under attack.
At home I had a couple of shelves of treasured kids’ books while my parents had walls coated with books. The books and periodicals of my writer and publisher grandfather were on a special bookshelf in the room next to the kitchen—maybe not consulted often, but proudly protected and displayed. But the delight of first going to the White Plains Public Library is indelibly imprinted in my mind—the bookshelves seemed to go on forever. There was book after book after Alice in Wonderland in the card catalog, books about mathematical recreations I could not imagine finding anywhere else, and record albums I could borrow. And I still remember the librarian saying, “You can read any of these books you want, and if we don’t have the one you want, we can get it for you [through the magic of interlibrary loan].” And this was all for free, which was the only thing that worked for a child. And available to everyone who could get their bones through that door of that magic place.
As a child, I did not know how special libraries were—I thought it was just how society worked—I thought there always were and always would be public libraries. I did not realize how fragile this system was until I became a digital librarian in order to make this promise come true for the next generation, a generation of digital learners. I did not think that in my lifetime this offer, this seeming human right, would be threatened by the people that made the fantasy-land of the White Plains Public Library possible: the corporate publishers.
Based on a simple but catastrophic business decision, the big publishers are making it impossible for libraries to do their core functions of preservation and enduring access in the digital era. Netflix, for instance, recently changed its terms of service to explicitly prohibit archiving, therefore allowing them to remove or change any movie for all subscribers at once.1 The decision of the big publishers that is so threatening to the mission of libraries is to stop selling their products. Their books, music, and videos—as the world moves digital—are only available for temporary access by library patrons from databases the publishers control.
At the dawn of the Internet age, we dreamed of a different future, a future where authors got paid for their work, where writings would find their natural audience, where small publishers would flourish supporting a wider range of authors, where new publications and services would democratize production and access to information. The Internet could have been used to create this future, and many of us have worked hard to make it come true, but the lack of antitrust enforcement led to rapid consolidation of publishers, Internet technologies allowed successful online publishers to become dominant worldwide, and an advertising model that made for very few commercial winners. This toxic brew of the collapse of independent publishers and limited commercial platform controlling distribution has made the decentralized Internet seem like a lost opportunity.
Libraries in the United States are under attack through book bannings,2 defundings,3 increasing criminalization of librarianship,4 licensing restrictions,5 governors vetoing protection for libraries,6 and a judiciary that is steadily siding with publishers.7 This is a long way from a century ago when the United States led in libraries with the Carnegie libraries—supported by legislatures and judiciary—helping create an educated citizenry ready to enter the world stage.
But there is hope for libraries and a public seeking alternatives to the flood of disinformation and promoted materials coming from online and offline information producers. Libraries are still funded and staffed with smart, caring professionals. Readers are becoming more media-aware and discerning. Best of all, people are still free to create and publish quality works with the remaining distribution and compensation structures. It is still possible to have a game with many winners, but maybe this window is closing.
To preserve the library system’s ability to help create an informed citizenry, we need libraries to buy, preserve, and offer free public access to the broad public. Our libraries have traditionally supported local authors and local publishers, and preserved a broad range of text, audio, and moving image materials. Libraries, when not stopped, have moved with the times, through microfilm and CD-ROMs, and now to the Internet in order to provide preservation and access. Our collective budgets in the United States support over 5% of all trade publishing revenues8—enough to cause a leveraged buyout firm, KKR, to find buying major publisher Simon and Schuster a good investment.9 Our libraries are a captive market for a shrinking number of academic and trade publishers.
The best case is that large publishers see the value in selling their digital products through multiple marketplaces, including to libraries. The next best is that independent publishers sell to libraries, and libraries eagerly buy, preserve, and lend from their owned collections. Authors, musicians, filmmakers and creators of all kinds could choose publishers and websites that sell to libraries.10
Our evolving digital age can be our next Carnegie moment or it can be a Library of Alexandria moment. It is up to us.
References
- Netflix. 2025. Terms & Conditions. https://www.netflix.shop/pages/terms-conditions “You agree not to archive, download (other than through caching necessary for personal use, to complete a product purchase or submit a customer service request), reproduce, distribute, modify, display, perform, publish, license, create derivative works from, offer for sale, or use content and information contained on or obtained from or through the Shop without express written permission from Netflix and its licensors.” ↩︎
- American Library Association. 2025. Book Ban Data. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data ↩︎
- Vilcarino, Jennifer. 2025. “Trump Admin. Cuts Library Funding. What It Means for Students.” Education Week, March 19, 2025. https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/trump-admin-cuts-library-funding-what-it-means-for-students/2025/03 ↩︎
- Jensen, Kelly. 2025. “Librarian Criminalization Bills Are Growing, But They’re Not New: Book Censorship News, March 14, 2025.” Book Riot, March 14, 2025. https://bookriot.com/librarian-criminalization-bills-are-growing/. ↩︎
- Kingson, Jennifer A. 2024. “Inside Libraries’ Battle for Better E-Book Access.” Axios, May 6, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2024/05/06/library-librarians-e-books-license-policies ↩︎
- American Libraries. 2021. “N.Y. Gov. Hochul Vetoes Library Ebook Bill.” American Libraries Magazine, December 29, 2021. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/latest-links/n-y-gov-hochul-vetoes-library-ebook-bill/ ↩︎
- Albanese, Andrew. 2022. “In Final Order, Court Declares Maryland’s Library E-book Law Unconstitutional.” Publishers Weekly, June 14, 2022. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/89598-in-final-order-court-declares-maryland-s-library-e-book-law-unconstitutional.html ↩︎
- Coates, Tim. 2023. “Should Public Libraries Double Down on Print Book Collections?” Publishers Weekly, March 10, 2023. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/91693-should-public-libraries-double-down-on-print-book-collections.html ↩︎
- KKR. 2023. “KKR to Acquire Simon & Schuster from Paramount Global for $1.62 Billion.” KKR Media, August 7, 2023. https://media.kkr.com/news-details?news_id=82241299-bf00-4648-a41d-5cb409d4e83d ↩︎
- Bustillos, Maria. 2021. “Sell This Book!” The Nation, August 3, 2021. https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/libraries-digital-publishing-ebooks/ ↩︎
About the author
Brewster Kahle is the digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive.
Amazing thing IA; people dreamt of; the mental model copy on RAM, while futuristic;
I remember reading a book of futuristic dreams by people in the 80s, before the internet. Among them is one about libraries: people dreamt that in the future we could just sit at home, hook our computers to TVs or monitors, and remotely checkout and read books without physically going to the library. I remember reading in the NYTimes that one university hooked TVs in students’ dorms to TV cameras in the library, then put books they requested in a auto page flipper facing the camera, so students can read the books with a remote control without going to the library (somehow this feels very much like IA’s model, exclusive streaming of books). Now we are past a quarter of 21st century, with superfast internet and gorgeous screens with print-level DPI and color reproduction, and yet we have not attained this goal. Why? You already know.
I don’t understand why publishers would not consider the TV book streaming practice aforementioned a breach of copyright, but would consider so for the equivalent in the digital age. It seems that publishers feel that a copy is practically reproduced in our RAM while we stream the data. But the digital world naturally comes with diminishing cost of reproduction and redistribution, does their “feel” really justify their jeopardying the library’s mission of ensuring public awareness and access with the best and most accessible technology available to them?
While Kahle laments the vanishing culture of library literacy, through their mass digitizing, we are actually seeing a encouraging trend: youngsters born in the digital age and never had a chance to develop library literacy, physical or digital, are becoming familiar with library terms and what was it like to consult a library back then.
– They now know to use book indexs, catalogs (even auction catalogs digitized by museums), subject bibliographies, or generally, just how to find new interesting books to read.
– They know how catalog cards work and what those abbreviations mean.
– They know that people wrote and published a lot back then, all kinds of books, not just the types they know at school or suggested readings, or mentioned somewhere on the internet.
– They know that getting to know a time period, they could consult the period encyclopedias, their yearbooks, and almanacs.
– They know that there are so many encyclopedias published in the world, in addition to Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, for all kinds of peoples, with varying quality, with their own peculiarities and design. For many this is the first time they know that encyclopedia articles could be written with so much fun and authority while being editorial.
So while we lament and be fearful for our youngsters’ future, let’s take a time to assess what we have achieved. You may already have a feeling that I am talking about my story. I indeed am. And I am sure that there are so many more digital native youngsters like me who feel the same. Deep inside, we all know that we would never have know this much without Internet Archive.
* please ignore the first line, I forgot to delete my jotted down ideas before submission…
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Readers are becoming more media-aware and discerning.
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I should hope that, by now, readers are taking note of what publishers are attempting to do to libraries and refusing to allow themselves to be victimised in the same way.
Publishers seem eager to follow the business model of the music industry (i.e. they want to sell people licenses for the *use* of music rather than music itself). It will be interesting to see if the publishing industry also follows in the footsteps of the post-Internet music industry by shrinking drastically once consumers realise that publishers are no longer willing to sell them anything more than a vague, dubious, revokable-at-any-time license to access something for ever-higher prices and for ever-diminishing amounts of time.
The current licensing scheme is strongly reminiscent of when Compact Discs were new and the music industry could charge whatever they liked for music. Well, those “golden years” lasted about a decade and half until technology changed and consumers realised they no longer needed the music industry to get music.
That was when the music industry suddenly became a lot smaller.
When consumers no longer view you as the solution, but rather, as part of the problem, they stop handing you money. It seems the publishers have yet to realise this and are only going to find out about it the hard way (i.e. when it is too late and their business model is no longer viable).
I think when it is “too late” and people prefer even piracry to their “e-books” streaming licenses, their actions will only become more fierce, firmly holding onto their copyrights, and telling us that because they once published the books we want, they can dictate how we can use it, and if they want to erase it from our memory and public access, they can do it and no one can say anything.
Forcing them to grant a perpetual digital exclusive streaming license to all physical books sold to libraries seems to me the only viable solution. Only this puts the market force back into play and puts an end to their arbitrary pricing practices.