Digital libraries in crisis: The case of the national emergency library

Abstract

This paper explores the National Emergency Library (NEL) created by the Internet Archive (IA) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NEL allowed unrestricted access to the IA’s collection of digitized books, suspending the waitlist imposed by the Controlled Digital Lending system. The study uses Carol Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to be (WPR) approach to analyze problem representations in media narratives and understand the response to the NEL. The study covers articles written between March 2020 and 2 years after, using a threepronged reading consisting of a distant, middle, and close reading. The analysis reveals that the IA and NEL are not necessarily consistent with piracy or shadow libraries, but that they differ in complexity and compliance with copyright law. The paper contributes to a critical understanding of how problem representations are constructed and shaped in media narratives, and how this affects digital libraries in times of crisis, and subsequently, policy discourse for all libraries. Overall, the paper highlights the complexities and nuances surrounding the NEL and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the implications of this response for digital libraries and copyright law.