A nonprofit set out to build one web page for every book
Open Library's and the Internet Archive's own pages state the catalogue project's founding goal and its scanning-partnership roots.
- Historical event
- January 1, 2007
- Site publication
- September 18, 2026
The record
Open Library's own about page states its goal in one line: "One web page for every book ever published. It's a lofty but achievable goal." The page identifies the project as "a project of the non-profit Internet Archive," funded in part "by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation," and built from catalogue records contributed by libraries and volunteers. A Wayback Machine snapshot from 1 October 2007 shows the site already live under the name "The Open Library," soliciting help to "build Open Library."
What the documents show
The current about page states the project's mission clearly but does not itself carry a founding date; that comes from the archived snapshot, which documents the site as operating, in an early form, by October 2007. An earlier Internet Archive blog post from 8 November 2005, written by Archive staff, records that "tonight we launched our bookscanning initiative and presented a vision of an Open Library," naming a partnership in which "Microsoft Network (MSN) joined the Open Content Alliance" to fund digitizing 150,000 books, and directing readers to "check out OpenLibrary.org for a cool bookviewer." Read together, the record shows the name and concept preceding the 2007 site by roughly two years, tied from the start to the Internet Archive's own scanning partnerships rather than arising independently of them.
Why it stays interesting
The gap between the 2005 announcement and the 2007 site complicates any single-date founding story: what became Open Library grew out of a scanning partnership's public demonstration before it existed as the catalogue-building platform its current about page describes. For a reader trying to date "when Open Library started," the honest answer the record supports is a range bounded by a 2005 vision and a 2007 working site, not one clean origin point. This is an editorial synthesis of what the three documents jointly show, not a claim any one of them makes alone.
What to read next
A reader could next check HathiTrust's own founding pages for a library-consortium alternative to Open Library's Internet-Archive-led model, and the Internet Archive's own blog for its later posts describing Open Library's move into book lending.
- What separates the 2005 "vision of an Open Library" announcement from the working 2007 catalogue site?
- How did the Open Content Alliance scanning partnership shape what records Open Library could build on?
- What does "one web page for every book" commit the project to, and what does it leave open?
Open Library's founding is documented here as a process rather than a single moment: a 2005 announcement, a live 2007 site, and a mission statement that has outlasted both, still stated in the same terms today.
Sources & reading trail
States Open Library's goal as 'one web page for every book ever published,' identifies it as a project of the Internet Archive, and names its funders.
Source published: Not established · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
Archived snapshot shows the Open Library site live and soliciting volunteer help to build its catalogue as of 1 October 2007.
Source published: Not established · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
Internet Archive's own blog post records the November 2005 announcement introducing the 'vision of an Open Library' alongside the Open Content Alliance scanning partnership, predating the 2007 site.
Source published: 8 November 2005 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
Reports, filings, records and studies establish the entry; the reading of why it stays interesting is Chapter Ledger editorial analysis. This retrospective draft does not imply the site published on the event date.
Continue reading
- Research libraries pooled their scans into one shared repository
- A pandemic lending change drew a publisher lawsuit within months
- Libraries built their lending case on owning, not licensing
- Browse the complete the ledger archive
Sources & reading trail
- About the Project
Retrieved: September 16, 2026 - Bookscanning Launch and Vision of an Open Library
Source published: November 8, 2005 · Retrieved: September 16, 2026
The documents above establish the record. The reading and the questions are this publication’s editorial analysis, written after the fact.
Published September 18, 2026, not on the date of the event described.