Standing Strong for Access to Knowledge: Brewster Kahle Speaks to NRC
On 7 April 2025, NRC Handelsblad published a thoughtful and deeply relevant interview with Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, titled “Het grootste webarchief ter wereld wordt bedreigd door procederende uitgevers, zegt oprichter” (“The world’s largest web archive is under threat from litigious publishers, says founder”). We extend our sincere thanks to journalist Juurd Eijsvoogel for this important piece, which brings a nuanced spotlight to the fragile future of public access to knowledge.
For nearly three decades, Kahle has led the effort to build a library of the internet — a monumental task rooted in the same democratic values as the libraries of centuries past. In the interview, he explains the existential legal challenges the Internet Archive faces today and why its mission is more critical than ever.
“We are not trying to replace publishers — we’re trying to make sure the past is not forgotten,” Kahle tells NRC. “And Europe, with its rich cultural heritage and strong library tradition, must play a central role in this.”
At Internet Archive Europe, we share this conviction wholeheartedly. We believe Europe is not only a natural home for a growing web archive — it is a vital force in ensuring digital memory is preserved and access remains open for all.
Kahle also speaks with enthusiasm about the promise of artificial intelligence to serve this mission:
“AI helps us search data and texts, create summaries and translations, perform optical character recognition – all wonderful tools to bring our collections to life.
In this way, we can offer broader audiences access to Latin texts, to summaries of books they might never read in full. It can unleash a whole new wave of creativity.”
This is the spirit in which we’re growing Internet Archive Europe: to make memory, learning, and imagination thrive in a digital world. We are actively building collaborations with European institutions to make this vision a reality — one that is open, multilingual, and inclusive.
📎 Read the full NRC interview here (in Dutch).
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