The Internet Archive is asking supporters to help pay for the machines that keep its free library running, in a push called “Keep Our Servers Running.”
The organization runs the Wayback Machine and a wide set of digital collections, all free, with no ads and no selling of user data. That model, the Internet Archive says, depends on systems it builds and keeps up itself rather than buying them from outside companies.
The Scale of the Work
Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive’s Digital Librarian, describes the goal in plain terms.
“Universal access to all human knowledge is within our grasp,” Kahle said. “Our job is to put the best our world has to offer within the reach of our children.”
That work runs on more than book scanners and tools that search the web, according to the Internet Archive. It requires:
- Servers
- Storage
- Power
- Cooling
- The people who build and keep up the systems
The organization says this base holds up its whole digital library. It now preserves and gives public access to 210 large measures of knowledge.
Why the Need Is Growing
Running the library costs money, even though using it does not. The Internet Archive says its needs are growing fast, and because it runs its own systems rather than paying outside firms to do it, it also carries the full cost alone.
That independence shapes how the group works. It does not charge for access. It does not sell user data. It does not run ads. Instead, it relies on gifts from the people who use and value it, and the Internet Archive says it is powered by gifts of about $25.
This is a group that has chosen, from the start, to stay free for all people, everywhere. That choice is part of why the cost of running it falls to those who give rather than to readers.
The September Match
This September, gifts given through the campaign will be matched to make them go three times as far, the organization says. A gift given each month, rather than just once, is what the Internet Archive says it needs most, since it can be counted on to return year after year.
Here is what the Internet Archive says the match means for those who give:
| Monthly Gift | Total Giving |
|---|---|
| $25 | $75 |
| $50 | $150 |
| $100 | $300 |
The group frames this as a call for steady, ongoing giving rather than a single gift. Gifts given every month, it says, provide the steady help needed to keep the systems running year after year, rather than leaving costs to be met all at once.
Joining the Circle
People who agree to give every month become part of what the Internet Archive calls its Monthly Giving Circle. The group frames that choice as something larger than paying for machines.
Members of the Circle are not simply keeping servers running, the campaign material states. They are described as helping keep books readable and websites open, and as keeping material safe for people to use later, long after it is first collected.
The message is plain: steady, regular gifts let the Internet Archive keep its systems running without pause.
The campaign does not name a total sum it hopes to raise, nor does it set an end date beyond the month of September. What it does state is how much further a monthly gift reaches under the match, and the size of gift the Internet Archive says often supports its work now.
The library the Internet Archive has built stands apart from most tools people use every day online, in that it was never built to sell anything to the people who rely on it. Keeping it running, the organization says, now falls to those same people, one gift of $25 at a time, month after month, for as long as the library is asked to hold what it holds.
Source: blog.archive.org