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Protecting the Past to Power the Future: Internet Archive Europe Launches the Our Future Memory Campaign

/ / Digital Rights for Libraries, Events, Press

Today marks a defining moment in the fight for digital rights in cultural heritage. From the shores of Lake Geneva, where minds have long gathered to shape the future of knowledge, Internet Archive Europe proudly announces the launch of Our Future Memory, a global campaign dedicated to safeguarding the digital rights of libraries, archives, and museums worldwide.

The timing could not be more deliberate. As we speak at the LIBER 2025 Annual Conference, surrounded by Europe’s leading library professionals, we are witnessing firsthand the urgency that drives this initiative. The “Four Rights for Libraries” panel session today, moderated by our own Jeff Ubois alongside distinguished speakers Justus Dreyling from COMMUNIA, Caroline De Cock from information labs, and Peter Routhier from Internet Archive, has crystallised what many of us have felt for years: the digital transformation has fundamentally altered the landscape for memory institutions, and not always for the better.

The Challenge We Face

While technology has promised universal access to human knowledge, many libraries today find themselves with fewer practical ways to fulfill their historic mission than they had decades ago. 

The shift from owning physical materials to licensing digital content has created an unprecedented crisis. License agreements routinely prohibit preservation activities that were once standard practice. Materials that exist only in digital formats often remain locked behind commercial platforms that restrict the very institutions meant to preserve them for future generations.

This is not merely a technical problem, it is a fundamental threat to the democratic principle that knowledge should be accessible to all, regardless of economic means or geographic location.

Our Response: Four Essential Rights

The Our Future Memory campaign centers on a simple premise: memory institutions must retain online the same rights and responsibilities they have historically exercised offline. To achieve this, we have articulated four fundamental digital rights:

  1. The Right to Collect materials in digital form, whether through digitisation, open market purchases, or other legal means. This includes content that exists only in streaming formats or behind platform restrictions.
  2. The Right to Preserve digital materials through backup, repair, and reformatting activities essential for long-term access. Without this right, today’s digital culture risks becoming tomorrow’s digital dark age.
  3. The Right to Lend digital content under traditional library conditions, maintaining the balanced approach to access that has served communities for centuries.
  4. The Right to Cooperate through sharing and transferring digital collections among institutions, ensuring that resource constraints do not create information deserts.

Building Momentum

The campaign has already gained remarkable traction. Since its initial signing in Aruba in April 2024, institutions across the globe have endorsed the statement. From the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision to the National Library of Serbia, from cultural organisations in Belgrade to public libraries throughout the Balkans, a diverse coalition is emerging.

This geographic and institutional diversity reflects a crucial truth: the challenges facing memory institutions transcend national boundaries and organisational types. The digitisation of culture affects us all, and our response must be equally comprehensive.

Why This Matters Now

The stakes extend far beyond library operations. Authors, researchers, journalists, and creators of all kinds depend on the sustained availability of cultural materials that only memory institutions preserve without regard to commercial viability. Future historians will judge us by how well we maintained access to the intellectual heritage of our time.

Join the Movement

Whether you lead a major research library or manage a small community archive, whether you work in policy development or daily patron services, your voice matters in this conversation.

We invite you to take action:

  • Sign the Statement: If you represent a memory institution or support organisation, visit ourfuturememory.org to learn about our verification process and add your endorsement.
  • Engage Your Community: Share this message with colleagues, board members, and stakeholders. The more voices we gather, the stronger our collective impact becomes.
  • Connect With Us: Follow our progress and join ongoing conversations about digital rights and cultural preservation.

From Lausanne today, we launch not just a campaign but a commitment to future generations. The memory institutions that have faithfully preserved human knowledge through countless technological transitions will continue to do so in the digital age, but only if we act with purpose and urgency.

Our future memory depends on the choices we make today. Join us in making them count.

Learn more about our work and the Our Future Memory campaign at ourfuturememory.org.

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Ownership Isn’t Optional: Why Libraries Must Control Their Digital Future

/ / Digital Rights for Libraries

Dominic Broadhurst’s recent resignation from Clarivate’s advisory board isn’t just one librarian’s stand; it’s a flashing red light for the entire library sector. His reasons – protesting Clarivate’s shift away from perpetual ownership of digital collections towards subscription-only models – echo exactly the warnings issued back in December 2022 in the Internet Archive’s report on Securing Digital Rights for Libraries.

The issue is stark: Renting knowledge isn’t the same as owning it.

Clarivate’s move, prioritizing recurring revenue over permanent access, perfectly illustrates the dangers highlighted:

  1. Loss of Control: When libraries can only subscribe, they lose the fundamental right to own and preserve collections for the long term. Libraries become dependent tenants, not permanent stewards.
  2. Erosion of Preservation: Subscription models jeopardise the library’s core mission to preserve knowledge for future generations. Content can disappear at a vendor’s whim or price increase, undermining collection stability.
  3. Threat to Equity: While framed as “affordable access,” mandatory subscriptions risk becoming unsustainable financial burdens, potentially limiting access for the communities libraries serve. True equity requires stable, perpetual access.
  4. Mission Conflict: As Broadhurst notes, vendor claims of “partnership” ring hollow when commercial interests directly undermine the library’s public service mission. Libraries’ role isn’t just providing temporary access; it’s ensuring lasting availability.

This isn’t just about one vendor. It’s about a fundamental principle: Libraries need ownership and control over digital resources to fulfill their mission. The shift to subscription-only access represents a direct challenge to library autonomy and the enduring public access to knowledge we safeguard.

Broadhurst’s resignation is a painful reminder that the fight for digital rights isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now, and the stakes are high. We must resist models that turn libraries into passive renters and champion solutions that guarantee permanent access and preservation.

The Internet Archive Europe stands firm on the principles outlined in the Internet Archive 2022 report. Libraries must have the right to own, preserve, and lend digital materials. This incident underscores the urgency of that fight. We cannot afford to rent our future.

Feature image by Barkhayot Juraev on Unsplash

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Standing Strong for Access to Knowledge: Brewster Kahle Speaks to NRC

/ / General, Press

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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