The Library of Congress Web Archive manages, preserves, and provides access to archived web content selected by subject experts from across the Library, so that it will be available for researchers today and in the future. Websites are ephemeral and often considered at-risk born-digital content. New websites form constantly, URLs change, content changes, and websites sometimes disappear entirely. Websites document current events, organizations, public reactions, government information, and cultural and scholarly information on a wide variety of topics. Materials that used to appear in print are increasingly published online.

This site provides general information about program activities, information for researchers who are interested in using the web archives, and information for site owners who might be included in the archives.

For Researchers

The Library of Congress web archives are organized in thematic and event-based collections, and contain websites documenting a variety of U.S. and international organizations representing a broad range of subjects and topic areas. Examples include select U.S. government sites from the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branch agencies; select foreign government sites; campaign websites and political parties documenting U.S. and select foreign elections; non-profit organizations; journalism and news; creative sites such as those documenting comics, music, authors, and art; legal sites; and international organizations. While most web archives are collected as a part of one or more event or thematic archives, the Library also preserves other sites within its general web archives.

For Researchers

For Site Owners

The Library notifies each site owner that we would like to include their content in the archive (with the exception of government websites) prior to archiving. In some cases, the email asks permission to archive or to provide off-site access to researchers.

For Site Owners

Web Archives

Browse web archives by collection topic. Additional web archives may be searched by visiting Search Web Archives.

Web Archives