uld be closing due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, we launch the temporary National Emergency Library to provide books to support emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation during the closures.

We have heard huns of stories from librarians, authors, parents, teachers, and students about how the NEL has fill an important gap during this crisis.

Ben S., a librarian from New Jersey, for example, told us that he us the NEL “to find basic life support manuals ne by frontline mical workers in the academic mical center I work at. Our physical collection was closdue to COVID-19 and the NEL allowe me to still make available nehealth informational materials to our hospital patrons.” We are proud to aid frontline workers.

Today we are announcing the National Emergency Library will close on June 16th, rather than June 30th, returning to traditional controll digital lending. We have learn that the vast majority of people use digitiz books on the Internet Archive for a very short time. Even with the closure of the NEL, we will be able to serve most patrons through controlle digital lending, in part because of the good work of the non-profit HathiTrust Digital Library. HathiTrust’s new Emergency Temporary Access Service features a short-term access model that we plan to follow.

We mov up our scule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic.  However, this lawsuit is not just about the temporary National Emergency Library. The complaint attacks the concept of any library