Continuing our series on the Internet Archive, I figured we’d start with the obvious bits. At the Internet Archive, you have access to a wide variety of public domain or owner-donated texts, audio, videos, and photos. That’s right, it’s just a like a library online, because that’s exactly what it is!
There are over 8 million texts available to browse or download in eBook formats on the Internet Archive, anything from text books for higher education to US government studies into UFO sightings. If what you’re looking for isn’t freely available for download at the Internet Archive, stop by its side-project, the Open Library for even more titles available to check out in eBook formats.
There are almost 3 million audio files available to stream or download, including voice recordings, radio shows, music, whole albums, audio books, and almost 2 hundred-thousand full live concerts. You’ll never need to buy an album or pay for a streaming music service again, unless you wanted to hear recently released music of course.
There are just over 2 million videos available to stream or download, including movies and television. If you’re feeling nostalgic, stop by the Perlinger Archives for over 6 thousand public service announcements and educational films, or perhaps almost 1 million TV news clips.
There are over 1 million images available to browse and download. From NASA Images to 16th Century artwork, it’s your history stored digitally in so many ways.
Take some time to tour the Internet Archive and see what you can find, and don’t forget, they take donations to keep everything freely available. Next time? Software!