Internet Archive has begun collecting and archiving CDs as part of our mission to contribute to preservation, research and discovery opportunities in musical media.

We started this journey with The Great 78 Project, where we digitize old 78rpm records from the early 20th century. Their fragile nature, their age, and the reality that most people no longer have equipment in their homes that would allow them to play this physical media made 78s a natural starting point.

CDs are the next step in our quest to preserve the music of our culture. They are faster to archive than 78s (or LPs), and we have already collected several hundred thousand of them. We have scanned more than 200,000 items so far, including the CD itself and all of the artwork and liner notes. The music is available as 30 second samples to the public, and can be accessed in bulk by vetted researchers for transformative uses.

We are looking for people who want to participate in building and using this collection. If you would like to donate CDs, let us know. If you want to do research on the entire corpus, write to us and tell us about your project.