📚 Library Resource Guide: 1 Trillion Web Pages Archived

Help us celebrate a historic milestone for the web!

This October, Internet Archive will reach a once-in-a-generation milestone: 1 trillion web pages archived, preserving our shared digital history for generations to come.

Your library can be part of the celebration! Use this resource guide to highlight your connection to the web’s memory and the role libraries play in preserving knowledge.

CONTENTS:

At-a-Glance

Why Is This Milestone Important For Libraries?

Ways Your Library Can Celebrate

Ready-to-Use Social Media Copy

Visuals

Spotlight: Library Impact Stories

Questions?

At-a-Glance

• Milestone: 1 trillion archived web pages
  
• Captured daily: 498 million pages
  
• Users daily: 800,000 people around the world
  
• Library partners: 1,250+ libraries and cultural heritage organizations using to build collections
  

Why Is This Milestone Important For Libraries?

• Libraries preserve culture, knowledge, and history — and that includes the web.
  
• This collection is the world’s largest public archive of the internet, and libraries have been central to its growth.
  
• This milestone represents a collective achievement: a global library built by and for everyone.
  
• Every web page saved is a piece of our cultural memory that might otherwise be lost.
  

Ways Your Library Can Celebrate

On Social Media

• Post a congratulations message (sample copy below).
  
• Share your favorite archived webpage using hashtag #Wayback1T.
  
• Create a “Then/Now” image for your library’s web site using our free Canva template.
  
• Record a short video answering the question: “Why is the Wayback Machine important to you?”
  

In Your Library

• Set up a computer station or monitor slideshow with “Then/Now” screenshots of popular websites from the Wayback Machine.
  
• Host a lunchtime talk or virtual program on how to use the Wayback Machine.
  

Ready-to-Use Social Media Copy

Feel free to use the following, or edit as you need to meet your library’s content & messaging guidelines.

Bluesky:

• Congratulations to @archive.org on archiving 1 trillion web pages! https://blog.archive.org/trillion/ Proud to be part of this shared digital memory. 💾🌐 #Wayback1T

X:

• Congratulations to @internetarchive on archiving 1 trillion web pages! https://blog.archive.org/trillion/ Proud to be part of this shared digital memory. 💾🌐 #Wayback1T

Visuals

• Then / Now screenshots of popular web sites, as captured by the Wayback Machine, including:

• AltaVista (Gone from the live web)
• Amtrak
• Apple
• Archive.org
• Blockbuster
• Compuserve
• GeoCities (Gone from the live web)
• Google
• HampsterDance (Gone from the live web)
• Library of Congress
• Microsoft
• MTV News (Gone from the live web)
• MySpace Tom
• MySpace White House (Gone from the live web)
• NASA
• Netscape (Gone from the live web)
• Pets.com (Gone from the live web)
• Skype
• TWA Airlines (Gone from the live web)

• Create your own Then/Now for your library’s web site using our free Canva template.

Spotlight: Library Impact Stories

• Rural Libraries Receive Support from the Internet Archive to Preserve Community Stories
  Across the U.S., rural librarians are joining forces with the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program to preserve their towns’ digital histories, keeping rural voices alive online.
  
• Archiving Resilience: How a Public Library Preserved Their Community’s Response to a Local Disaster
  When wildfires devastated Sonoma County in 2017, the local library joined the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program to capture the community’s stories of loss, recovery, and resilience shared online. From blogs and relief sites to pandemic diaries and social justice projects, their archives now preserve how a community endures and rebuilds.
  
• Local Voices, Lasting Impact: Digitizing a Community Magazine in Hancock County, Mississippi
  After a flood threatened its local history collection, the Hancock County Library System partnered with the Internet Archive to digitize The Mississippi Star—a 1990s magazine celebrating the Gulf Coast’s Black community. 🌟 Now online, this rare publication offers a vivid portrait of Mississippi life, culture, and civil rights history
  
• Public Librarians Partner with Internet Archive to Preserve Local Digital Heritage
  Across North America, public librarians are teaming up with the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program to preserve their communities’ digital heritage. Discover how more than 270 libraries are safeguarding the online stories that describe their communities.
  

Questions?

For general questions about participating in the celebration:
📩 chrisfreeland@archive.org

This page was last updated October 6, 2025.