SEBASTOPOL, CA—December 27, 2007—Public.Resource.Org, the Internet Archive, and the Boston Public Library announced today the commencement of phase 1 of a project that aims to create a comprehensive digital archive of 60 million pages of government documents over the next two years.
Phase 1 of the project will produce a minimum of 2.5 million pages of digital text using a scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) technology suite developed by the Internet Archive. The Boston Public Library is the first Contributing Library in the program, and has agreed to lend a 50-year run of Congressional Hearings from 1936–1986, as well as a complete copy of the Catalog of Copyright Entries. Scanning will take place at the Boston Library Consortium's Northeast Regional Scanning Center.
Phase 1 is funded by a $250,000 matching grant challenge from Omidyar Network which was met with a matching grant of $250,000 from the Kahle-Austin Foundation.
Phase 2 of the program will produce a full digital archive of 60 million pages of government documents, consisting of the entire corpus of federal publications such as the Congressional Record and the Federal Register. The total cost of Phase 2 is estimated at $6 million and will take approximately two years.
The Internet Archive and Public.Resource.Org are currently soliciting interested parties who might wish to contribute to Phase 2 funding or participate as Contributing Libraries. Contributions to this project are tax-deductible under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.
The scanned documents produced by this project will remain in the public domain and be available in bulk without restriction. In addition to becoming a part of the libraries at the Internet Archive and the Boston Public Library, the project will actively solicit and promote use of these data by commercial, noncommercial, and government groups.
Media Contacts
| Brewster Kahle | Maura Marx | Carl Malamud |
| Internet Archive | Boston Public Library | Public.Resource.Org |
| +1.415.561.6767 | +1.617.859.2386 | +1.707.827.7290 |
| brewster at archive dot org | mamarx at bpl dot org | carl at media dot org |
About the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.
About the Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library's mission is to preserve and provide free access to the historical record of our society while serving the cultural, educational and informational needs of the people of City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. For more than 150 years, the Library has been able to fulfill its promise “Free to All.”
About Public.Resource.Org
Public.Resource.Org was founded in 2007 to spearhead the creation of public works projects for the Internet. A 501(c)(3) registered public charity, Public.Resource.Org has worked across all three branches of the U.S. government to enhance the public domain.
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