The Internet Archive will now keep a physical copy of every book, record and movie that it is able to attract or acquire, all with the goal of making sure that there is at least one physical copy of a book or record or film preserved.

Although it has built a large storage facility in Richmond, California, this isn't a physical library per se. As before, the Internet Archive will emphasize the digital access to the content. In other words, this new physical archive isn't about retrieval or "checking out" materials, but is about long-term preservation.

Kahle likens the project to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed bank that is a way of "storing important objects in safe ways to be used for redundancy, authority, and in case of catastrophe."