Overview

• California Senator Alex Padilla officially designated the San Francisco–based Internet Archive as a federal depository library in a letter to the Government Publishing Office on July 24, 2025.
• The Archive now joins more than 1,100 libraries responsible for preserving and distributing uncopyrighted federal documents such as congressional records and environmental reports.
• Direct access to GPO data feeds will streamline the Archive’s ingestion of government publications into its platforms, including the Wayback Machine and Democracy’s Library.
• Founder Brewster Kahle said integration into the depository network will help embed public domain materials into resources like Wikipedia to bolster the online knowledge ecosystem.
• The Archive’s separate lawsuits over e-book lending and the Great 78 Project remain unresolved and could still expose the nonprofit to substantial financial liabilities.