From the blog of the Internet Archive:
To address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to
reading and research materials, as of today, March 24, 2020, the
Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and
growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library
to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run
through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency,
whichever is later.
During the waitlist suspension, users will be able to borrow books from the National Emergency Library
without joining a waitlist, ensuring that students will have access to
assigned readings and library materials that the Internet Archive has
digitized for the remainder of the US academic calendar, and that people
who cannot physically access their local libraries because of closure
or self-quarantine can continue to read and thrive during this time of
crisis, keeping themselves and others safe.
This library brings together all the books from Phillips Academy Andover and Marygrove College, and much of Trent University’s
collections, along with over a million other books donated from other
libraries to readers worldwide that are locked out of their libraries.
This is a response to the scores of inquiries from educators about
the capacity of our lending system and the scale needed to meet
classroom demands because of the closures. Working with librarians in
Boston area, led by Tom Blake of Boston Public Library, who gathered
course reserves and reading lists from college and school libraries, we
determined which of those books the Internet Archive had already
digitized. Through that work we quickly realized that our lending
library wasn’t going to scale to meet the needs of a global community of
displaced learners. To make a real difference for the nation and the
world, we would have to take a bigger step....MUCH MORE
