Important: There has been a cyber attack on internet archive and it is currently unavailable (updated 10 October 2024)

Before you attempt to borrow a book from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/ you will need to register.

To register:

1. go to https://archive.org/account/signup and complete the registration form.  
2. You'll receive an email asking you to confirm your account, click the confirmation link in the email to complete the registration process,

Then search the Internet archive for the book you want to borrow, you can search using a title, author, subject/keyword or a combination of these.  From the results choose the "text" option under Media type on the left to limit to books.

Borrowing

There are three categories for the books in the internet archive:

• Always available - these are generally books which are out of copyright.
  • You can read online simply by selecting the title to open the book in the ereader.
  • Use the navigation arrows at the bottom right of the reader to move the page; select a single page or double page view; see thumbnail images; use the read aloud function; or increase/decrease the text size.
  • You can download and keep these books, scroll down the page to see a range of formats and choose a format that suits.
• Borrow 14 days
  • You need to sign in to "borrow" these titles. Choose Log In and Borrow at the top of the screen, login using the email address and password you chose when registering.
  • The default loan period is 1 hour, there's a dropdown menu option to borrow for 14 days.
  • Use the navigation arrows at the bottom right of the reader to move the page; select a single page or double page view; see thumbnail images; use the read aloud function; or increase/decrease the text size.
  • Download options are available for some of these, you need to choose the 14-day loan option for download options to appear.  
  • For titles which can be downloaded you will need to have additional software installed, such as Adobe Digital Editions, to open these downloads.  These downloads will expire after 14 days.
• Lending Library
  • You need to sign in to "borrow" these titles. Choose Log In and Borrow at the top of the screen, login using the email address and password you chose when registering.
  • The default loan period is 1 hour, for some titles there's a dropdown menu option to borrow for 14 days.
  • Use the navigation arrows at the bottom right of the reader to move the page; select a single page or double page view; see thumbnail images; use the read aloud function; or increase/decrease the text size.
  • Download options are available for some of these, you need to choose the 14-day loan option for download options to appear.  
  • For titles which can be downloaded you will need to have additional software installed, such as Adobe Digital Editions, to open these downloads.  These downloads will expire after 14 days.

You can borrow up to 10 items at a time from the Internet Archive.

Find out more about downloading and returning borrowed books.  A page of Frequently asked questions can be found here.

Archive.org provides additional services for people with print disabilities.