Events

Europe Joins the Celebration: 1 Trillion Web Pages Preserved for Future Generations

/ / Events, Public Domain

This autumn, the Internet Archive reached a milestone that belongs to all of us: 1 trillion web pages preserved through the Wayback Machine. That’s 1 trillion glimpses into our shared digital memory — from the early homepages of the 1990s to the voices of today’s communities across the world.

As the Internet Archive marks this extraordinary achievement on 22 October in San Francisco, we invite libraries, archives, and cultural institutions across Europe to celebrate their role in making the web’s history accessible to everyone.

A Global Mission Rooted in Local Efforts

When the Internet Archive launched in 1996 with the goal of “building a digital library for the future,” few could have imagined the scale of the mission ahead. Nearly three decades later, the Wayback Machine has become one of the most widely used digital preservation tools in the world, capturing billions of web pages every month.

Each of those pages tells a story — of innovation, creativity, culture, and community. And behind every snapshot lies the dedication of institutions committed to safeguarding knowledge.

Across Europe, libraries have been at the forefront of this work: archiving national domains, documenting local histories, and ensuring that the diverse voices of our continent are not lost to time.

Europe’s Role in Preserving the Web

European institutions have long been pioneers in digital preservation — from the UK Web Archive and Bibliothèque nationale de France to Netarkivet in Denmark and numerous national and university projects across the continent.

Their collaborative spirit mirrors the Internet Archive’s mission: universal access to knowledge. Together, they ensure that Europe’s web — multilingual, culturally rich, and constantly evolving — remains accessible to researchers, journalists, and citizens for generations to come.

Celebrating the Libraries That Keep Memory Alive

To help libraries and archives join in this once-in-a-generation milestone, the Internet Archive has released a Resource Guide filled with practical tools and ideas.

It includes ready-to-use materials such as:

  • Social media templates and visuals
  • Event ideas and workshop guides
  • Impact stories from institutions worldwide

Ways Your Library Can Celebrate

Explore your community’s digital history. And help us write the next chapter of the web’s story — one page at a time.

  • 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?”

As we look ahead to the next trillion, Internet Archive Europe invites libraries, cultural heritage institutions, and communities to continue working together to preserve the web, celebrate digital memory, and keep knowledge alive.

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Step Into the Dutch Web of the Past: Discover “Websites van Nederland” at the KB Until “Night at the Museum” on 11 October

/ / Events, Public Domain

On September 17th, we were proud to unveil a new way to interact with digital history at the KB, the National Library of the Netherlands. Our new interactive installation, “Websites van Nederland: explore the web of the past,” is now open to the public, offering a playful and profound journey into the Dutch internet archive.

The response has been fantastic, affirming our belief that this machine is more than just a tool. As we noted at the launch, it’s a tangible expression of our vision to place our collective memory directly at each individual’s fingertips, demonstrating how digital preservation is not about storing data in the abstract, but about making the richness of the past immediately usable, searchable, and alive.

A Universe of Dutch Culture

“Internet Archive Europe Open House, 19 September 2025” by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 4.0

The installation immerses visitors in a visual galaxy of 85,000 Dutch websites, drawn from over 1.2 million archived snapshots captured between 1996 and 2025. Using a physical joystick and buttons, visitors can fly through this vast digital universe, discovering the incredible diversity of the nation’s web landscape. The gamified experience encourages curiosity, while powerful voice search allows users to pinpoint specific topics or domains.

A Time Machine at Your Fingertips

Beyond exploring the sheer vastness of the archive, the installation is a powerful time machine. Visitors can select any website and instantly replay its history, flipping through archived versions to watch it evolve over the years. This feature makes the concept of a web archive tangible, showing how websites lived, breathed, and changed. To make the experience personal, a QR code lets visitors send any discovered website directly to their mobile phone to explore further.

A Blueprint for Europe’s Digital Heritage

While this first installation celebrates the Dutch web, it serves as a powerful blueprint for all of Europe. The technology and concept behind “Websites van Nederland” are designed to be adaptable. Imagine a “Websites of France” in Paris, or a “Websites of Italy” engaging visitors in Rome.

This is central to Internet Archive Europe’s mission. We aim to create engaging ways for citizens across the continent to connect with their own unique digital histories. This project shows that it’s possible to transform national web archives from static repositories into dynamic, interactive public experiences.

This is what “bringing collections to life” truly means. By connecting people with the traces of their own digital past, we empower them to understand the present and imagine the future. We believe this is essential work to ensure Europe’s digital memory is not only safeguarded, but also activated, accessible, and meaningful to all.

We invite you to visit the KB and experience “Websites van Nederland” for yourself. The installation will be on display until 11 October, culminating in The Hague’s Museum Night. Come and play with the past!

Photo credits featured image: “Preserving Digital Sovereignty: Marleen Stikker & Brewster Kahle at the KB” by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 4.0

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Athens Calling! Brewster Kahle at the Research and Intellectual Property Law Conference & Celebrates 1 Trillion Archived Web Pages

/ / Digital Rights for Libraries, Events

The Hellenic Copyright Organization (HCO), together with Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21), is convening a major scientific conference on the intersection of research, access to knowledge, and intellectual property law. The event, titled “Research and Intellectual Property Law”, will take place on Monday, September 29, 2025, at the Goethe-Institut Auditorium in Athens.

Organized with the support of the Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) and the Collective Management Organization for Literary Works (ΟΣΔΕΛ – OSDEL), and under the auspices of the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the conference will bring together leading voices from law, academia, and policy to examine the evolving landscape of intellectual property and Open Science in Europe.

A European Dialogue on Knowledge and Research

The conference offers a unique platform to address pressing legal and policy challenges that shape how research outputs and knowledge are shared across borders. With the European Commission placing increasing emphasis on Open Science and equitable access to information, this initiative reflects a growing recognition of the need for dialogue between intellectual property frameworks and the research community.

Among the speakers is Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive and Internet Archive Europe, who will deliver a talk on “Building Research Collections and Bringing them to Life” from 10:15 to 10:40. His intervention will highlight the importance of universal access to knowledge and showcase how digital libraries can empower researchers and citizens alike.

Sessions throughout the day will also explore:

  • Legal and policy dimensions of access to knowledge
  • The role of intellectual property in enabling or restricting Open Science
  • Strategies to foster innovation, transparency, and equitable participation in European research

Closing Celebration: 1 Trillion Archived Web Pages

The conference will conclude on a festive note with the Internet Archive Europe Cocktail (16:15–17:00), celebrating a once-in-a-generation milestone. This October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is projected to hit 1 trillion web pages archived— preserved for the public and available to access online. That’s one billion people sharing, as Brewster would say: “It just shows people are awesome!”

This closing celebration will not only mark the scale of this achievement, but also provide participants with the opportunity to connect, exchange ideas, and reflect on how far the preservation of knowledge has come — and where it is heading.

Event Details

📅 Monday, September 29, 2025
🕘 9:30 a.m. – 17:00 p.m.
📍 Goethe-Institut Auditorium, 14–16 Omirou Street, Athens
🔗 Register here
🔗 View the conference program

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Oudeschans, Old Ramparts and New Guardians: Reflections on the Internet Archive Europe Open House

/ / Events

Last week, the new headquarters of Internet Archive Europe at Oudeschans came alive with voices, laughter, ideas, and shared commitment. What had been a milestone in planning and construction became, for a few hours, something far more alive—an affirmation of what it means to protect, to remember, to build for the future.

The Rampart of Oudeschans: History, Meaning, Metaphor

To stand at Oudeschans is to feel history underfoot: the Old Rampart dates back to Amsterdam’s early 16th century, when a canal, moat, and wall were constructed to protect the eastern flank of the city. These earthen walls, wooden palisades, and waterworks defended Amsterdam from external threats, serving as vital structures of protection. As time passed, the military purpose of the walls faded. The ramparts were gradually absorbed into urban growth, as canals, quays, neighborhoods, and the daily lives of Amsterdam’s citizens evolved. What had once been a bulwark against danger became part of the living city.

And on that open house day, Internet Archive Europe embraced that same legacy, the responsibility of being a living rampart for memory.

Defending Memory in a Digital Age

Why does Europe need a rampart of memory today? Because digital content is peculiarly fragile:

  • Websites vanish. Links rot. Formats become unreadable.
  • Cultural artifacts stored only digitally can be lost without proper infrastructure or foresight.
  • Legal, technical, and funding challenges threaten access to knowledge.

In this sense, the Internet Archive Europe is building something essential: walls of protection, yes — but also channels of access, transparency, collaboration. Not isolation, but integration: with libraries, with AI, with policy, with the public.

Faces Old and New: The Community Comes Together

The event was, above all, a gathering of friends—those who have walked alongside Internet Archive Europe from its early days, and many who are meeting its mission freshly, for the first time.

  • Among the old friends were heritage librarians, digital preservation experts, longtime collaborators from European libraries and museums, and policy advocates who have argued for open access and digital rights. These people know the fragile terrain: disappearing websites, vanishing metadata, legal grey zones.
  • The new friends included technologists drawn by the promise of public AI tools; scholars excited by what “bringing collections to life” could mean; younger activists and students eager for ways to help safeguard memory; and representatives of smaller language communities and underserved institutions who saw potential for more equitable access and new infrastructure.

Together, old and new, they wove conversation: what is being preserved, how, for whom, and what tools are truly needed to keep memory alive.

Words and Code: Visions for a Shared Future

The buzz of conversation gave way to a series of inspiring presentations that framed the day’s purpose. 

Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive Europe, perfectly captured the spirit of the event. He envisioned the historic location as a place where this “17th century building… can once again help foster openness with new technologies” as we all “strive for a healthy information ecosystem.” The ultimate goal, he explained, is not to create “a game of a few big winners,” but to build a system where “everyone prospers based on our shared cultural heritage.” This collaborative ethos was echoed by Wilma Van Wezenbeek, General Director of the KB Nationale Bibliotheek, and further explored by voices from the technological frontier, including Daniel Erasmus of Digital Thinking Network Foundation, Ben Cerveny from the Foundation for Public Code, and Kai Jauslin of Nextension.

This vision was made tangible through compelling live demonstrations, where Daniel, Ben, and Kai presented different tools that harness AI for the public good with Climate GPT, the Web Archiving display, and the Spacecraft experience. Attendees witnessed firsthand the novel ways in which memory organizations can bring collections to life, creating new pathways for discovery and interaction with our shared history.

Conclusion: Custodians of Our Future Memory

As the old ramparts of Amsterdam once protected lives, commerce, and ideas, so too is Internet Archive Europe aiming to protect our collective past to enable our collective future.

What we preserve now will be what our future selves can touch, learn from, and build on. Internet Archive Europe’s open house was a reminder that memory, digital and analog, must be defended—not by walls alone, but by hands, minds, policies, and trust. Let’s ensure that what matters — knowledge, culture, memory — is not lost but sustained, accessible, alive.

Join Us

The Internet Archive Europe Headquarters is thrilled to announce it will soon offer weekly reading room hours and play host to the Open World community with lectures, meetups, and hackathons. We welcome your participation, so please sign up to our quarterly newsletter and stay up-to-date with our activities and projects. 

Internet Archive Europe Open House, 19 September 2025

Photo credit: “Internet Archive Europe Open House, 19 September 2025” by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 4.0

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Preserving Digital Sovereignty: Reflections on Brewster Kahle’s Intervention at the KB

/ / Digital Rights for Libraries, Events, Public AI

On 17 September, the KB – National Library of the Netherlands hosted an inspiring gathering on the theme of digital sovereignty and the future of web archiving, featuring Marleen Stikker (Waag Futurelab) and Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive / Internet Archive Europe). The event brought together colleagues from OCW, the Rijksmuseum, Europeana, UNESCO, Beeld & Geluid, the Hilversum Time Machine, and many others — a true community committed to safeguarding our shared digital heritage.

Setting the Stage: Why the Web Matters

The session began with Sophie Ham from the KB introducing the national web collection. As she noted, “Our life is on the internet and that is worth preserving.” She reminded the audience that the Dutch web, though relatively small, is of unique historical significance. The Netherlands was already present on the internet in 1985, and remarkably, the third and fourth websites ever created were hosted here.

Sophie emphasized how the Internet Archive has been an invaluable partner in capturing material from before 2007 (when the KB’s own archiving began), and continues to provide preservation capacity that Dutch institutions cannot yet fully pursue due to legal restrictions.

Marleen Stikker on the Digital City and Public AI

Marleen Stikker, in conversation with Martijn Kleppe, revisited De Digitale Stad — the pioneering 1990s digital community. As its former “mayor,” she recalled both the promise and the early challenges of online communication.

Her message was clear: if we want democratic and open digital infrastructures, we must invest in Public AI, built on European values, as articulated in Paul Keller’s recent white paper. Just as De Digitale Stad was once a civic experiment in digital space, today’s moment calls for a renewed commitment to public digital institutions.

Brewster Kahle: Putting Collective Memory at Our Fingertips

Closing the afternoon, Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive Europe shared reflections on nearly three decades of global web preservation.

He began by warmly thanking XS4ALL and KPN for years of server support, and Beeld & Geluid for taking on this role moving forward. He noted that the Internet Archive is fast approaching the milestone of one trillion websites preserved. For Kahle, this work rests on a simple truth: “People are awesome. People want to share, and what they share is worth preserving.”

Kahle too called for Public AI, not dominated by corporate interests but rooted in European values and democratic accountability. He illustrated the potential of AI trained on public knowledge with the example of Leiden University dissertations — documents unlikely to be read by many humans, but which could fuel new discoveries when made accessible to machines.

Perhaps the most tangible expression of this vision was the unveiling of a new interactive machine installed at the KB. Visitors will be able to explore the Dutch web as preserved in the Internet Archive’s collections until 11 October, culminating in The Hague’s Museum Night. More than just a tool, this machine embodies the possibility of placing our collective memory directly at each individual’s fingertips. It demonstrates how digital preservation is not about storing data in the abstract, but about making the richness of the past immediately usable, searchable, and alive for today’s citizens.

This is what “bringing collections to life” truly means — connecting people with the traces of their own digital history and empowering them to use that knowledge to understand the present and imagine the future. And this is at the heart of Internet Archive Europe’s mission: to ensure that Europe’s digital memory is not only safeguarded, but also activated, accessible, and meaningful to all.

Looking Forward

The event at the KB was more than a discussion: it was a reminder that preserving the internet is not just a technical task, but a cultural, democratic, and civic responsibility. It highlighted the importance of collaboration — between libraries, archives, technologists, and policymakers — in ensuring that Europe’s digital memory remains accessible for future generations.

As Brewster Kahle put it, what people share online is worth keeping. And with initiatives like Internet Archive Europe, anchored in Amsterdam, we are taking meaningful steps to safeguard that shared heritage — and to build public digital infrastructures that can meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Preserving Digital Sovereignty: Marleen Stikker & Brewster Kahle at the KB

Photo credit: “Preserving Digital Sovereignty: Marleen Stikker & Brewster Kahle at the KB” by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 4.0

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Preserving Digital Sovereignty: Marleen Stikker & Brewster Kahle at the KB in The Hague on 17 September

/ / Digital Rights for Libraries, Events

Exploring the Urgency of Web Archiving in the Netherlands

In an era where websites disappear and change at a rapid pace, safeguarding our digital cultural heritage has never been more urgent. On Wednesday 17 September, the KB – National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague will host a timely event featuring Marleen Stikker, internet pioneer and founder of Waag Futurelab, and Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and Internet Archive Europe.

This gathering will focus on the need for robust web archiving in the Netherlands. Despite efforts by Dutch institutions like the KB, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, and the National Archives, legal restrictions severely limit the ability to comprehensively preserve Dutch websites. As a result, vast portions of the Dutch digital memory risk being lost.

A Conversation on Collective Memory and Democratic Infrastructure

The event will spotlight how digital preservation supports historical awareness, collective memory, and a functioning democracy. Marleen Stikker will address why digital sovereignty matters in today’s political and cultural landscape, while Brewster Kahle will showcase the Internet Archive’s efforts to preserve the web globally since 1996—including new ways to explore archived websites and bring collections to life.

Their insights will be particularly valuable for policymakers, cultural heritage professionals, and digital preservation advocates. The discussion will be held in English.

Event Details

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2025
Time: 15:30–17:00, followed by a reception
Location: KB | National Library of the Netherlands, Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, 2595 BE The Hague
Language: English
Audience: Heritage sector professionals and advocates, policymakers, and invited guests

👉 Register here to attend the event and more info here.
(Note: Limited capacity; early registration recommended)

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