In an effort to serve the nation’s “displaced learners” amid the coronavirus crisis, the Internet Archive announced this week that it’s suspending waitlists for the more than 1.4 million digitized books in its online lending library. Book lovers can access the non-profit’s new National Emergency Library for free through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency.
“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,” a blog post announcing the creation of the library explains.
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The library includes all the books from Phillips Academy Andover and Marygrove College, and much of Trent University’s collections, along with more than a million other donated books.
“The library system, because of our national emergency, is coming to aid those that are forced to learn at home,” Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, said in a statement. “This was our dream for the original Internet coming to life: The Library at everyone’s fingertips.”
Happy reading, y’all!
